1 



r 



/ 



HEAVEN THE MODEL 

OF 

CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 



THE FAMILY 

/ 



RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION; 



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If ye love me, keep my commandments.— John xiv. 15. 



TROY, N. Y. 

PUBLISHED BY ELIAS GATES. 
1840. 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840, by Elia 
Gates, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Unit 
ed States for the Northern District of New- York. 




N. Tuttle, Printer, 



CONTENTS. 



Preface Page 9 

CHAPTER I. 

Introductory 19 

CHAPTER II. 

The Family, a Religious Institution. — As truly so as 
the Church — established by God — recognised by him as 
a religious institution — religious instruction enjoined in 
it — promises and threatenings addressed to it. Family 
sacrifices. God covenants with families. The family 
recognised in the ten commandments. Covenant under 
the christian dispensation. Correspondence between 
the state of the family institution and true piety. The 
opposition of infidelity. The guardianship of God. An 
illustration 23 

CHAPTER III. 

The Family, a Religious Institution, (continued.) — 
Internal evidence. Miracle at Cana of Galilee. Duty 
of ministers. Position of irreligious parents. Pitiable 
condition of the children of such parents. Why paren- 
tal affection is implanted so deeply. Obligation of 
household prayer. Duty of the church to the family. 
Every house a sanctuary. Remarks on multiplied re- 
ligious services. , , 33 

1* 



vi. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Family Constitution.— Heaven the model of a 
christian family. God our real, and man but our re- 
presentative father. The father, officially considered, 
bears the image of God. The wisdom and beneficence 
of this constitution. Remarks on Psalm 82d. Obser- 
vations on the general structure of society. Application 
to the family 

CHAPTER V. 
The Chief Matter of Parental Solicitude.— This a 
natural subject of inquiry. Folly of seeking chiefly the 
things of this world. The supreme importance of piety. 
The neglect of this matter— an anecdote illustrating it. 
Piety, when the end of family arrangements, causes the 
family to harmonize with heaven 

CHAPTER VI. 
Habits of Childhood.— Obedience— the dependence of 
man teaches the duty. It is the essence of creature ho- 
liness. It should be the prominent habit inculcated. 
Love. It is essential to genuine obedience. Character 
of heavenly obedience. The obedience of the church 
founded in love. Obedience of love , 

CHAPTER Vn. 

Parental Duties and Responsibilities.— Parents 
should be mindful of them. They are not to intercept 
their children from God, but conduct them to him. Cri- 
minality of neglecting this. The parent a type of God- 
fallen— recovered by grace. The importance of paren- 
tal duties— in view of the strength of early habits. Pa- 
rents must govern as God governs— requiring constant 
and cheerful obedience. This duty solemn and impera- 
tive. The cruelty of neglecting it. The ruin conse- 
quent. The authority of conscience. The happiness 

•of obedience A 



CONTENTS 



vii 



CHAPTER Vm. 

On the Culture of Filial Obedience. — The mode of 
culture. How it is cultivated in heaven. The Divine 
method of advancing it on earth. In like manner to be 
cultivated in the family. Father's influence. Maternal 
ascendency over the affections. Correspondence be- 
tween family affection and family government. Error 
hi the indiscreet use of the rod. Its sphere denned. Me- 
thod of exhibiting love. On concentrating filial affec- 
tions. Words and tones of kindness. An anecdote. 
Duty of parental forbearance. Presence of parents with 
then children. Necessity of parents living near to 
God ., 112 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Season ofParent.il Effort. — Importance of child- 
hood. An absurd doctrine. Childhood is the fit season. 
It is the indicated season. The baptismal ordinance. 
The teachings of Scripture. Invitations of the Saviour. 
The religion of a little child — wherein manifested. 
Childhood is a neglected season. Parental anxiety 
awakened too late. It is the season of scripture promise. 
Importance of intelligent and systematic and persever- 
ing - effort. Errors to be avoided 13-3 

CHAPTER X. 

On Guiding the Affections to God. — Remarks on the 
development of early piety. Extraordinary instances. 
How to secure piety towards God — an important inqui- 
ry. Means to be employed. Children to be taught, 
early, of God. Religion to be rendered pleasing and 
attractive. Stated means of grace, in and out of the 
family, to be employed. An holy example to be set. 
Evil influences to be arrested. Dependence on divine 
gTace 149 



viii. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. XI. 
The Family Covenant and Seal.— Encouragement to 
parents. The wants of the family not forgotten in the 
provisions of redemption. There is a family covenant. 
Signification of covenant. Promise to Abraham. Sub- 
jects and import thereof. Conditions of the promise. 
Language of the Old Testament concerning this pro- 
mise. Connection of the promise with parental fidelity. 
The promise to Abraham inherited by all Gentile be- 
lievers. Proved by the language of the promise— by 
the practices of the Jews— by the prophecies— by the 
New Testament. Community of interest in Christ 
Privileges of the present, not less than those of the past 
dispensation. The Seal of the Covenant. Infant bap- 
tism. Its relation to circumcision. Obliffatorv upon all 
believing parents. An objector answered. Utilitv of 
the ordinance. Children of believers, the only subjects. 1 

CHAPTER XH. 
The Family Covenant, (continued.)— The covenant de- 
finite : securing blessings to the children of aU obedient 
parents. Definiteness essential to a covenant. Terms 
of the covenant are not indefinite. An argument deriv- 
ed from parental affections. These affections implanted 
by God, and regarded in the provisions of his grace. 
Abundance of children promised to God : s people. Nee- 
led of parents, and consequent failure on their part in 
confirming the covenant. Blessings proportionate to 
fidelity. Motives to holiness y 



CHAPTER xm. 



PREFACE. 



It is, by no means, a just impression with regard to 
every subject, that it becomes exhausted, or necessarily 
irksome, in proportion to the frequency with which it is 
treated. The polish of the marble will continue the 
same under the hands of successive workmen, until the 
very stone itself be gone. The lustre of the gold cannot 
be effaced by attrition. And so with many subjects on 
which our minds may act. They are incapable of ex- 
haustion. They are invested with a deep and permanent 
interest, even though no new beauty be discovered, and 
no new truth be brought to light. 

If the author judges right, the subject which he at- 
tempts to treat in the following pages is of the class de- 
scribed. It is common; but from its very nature and 
relations it can never be divested of deep interest and 
profit, while the parental relation continues, and espe- 
cially while there are christian parents to look upon 
their little ones as entering upon an immortal career. 

Home is a precious sanctuary; and the influences that 
are active there are of incalculable importance. That 
state of society which fosters a just appreciation of the 
family relation, and causes its privileges and joys to be 



X 



PREFACE. 



prized and preserved in the greatest purity, is one most 
to be desired. The quiet of a rural village is generally 
more favorable to healthful family influences, and to the 
inviolateness of the household sanctuary, than the ex- 
citement of a commercial place. Whatever tends to di- 
vert the thoughts or the presence of parents or children 
away from their own firesides, and send them elsewhere 
for greater enjoyment, tends seriously to infringe the 
power and the benefits of the family. 

Let those who have gone from the quiet places of their 
youth, where they were educated, amid the sacred re- 
straints and endearments of a well-ordered rural home, 
and are now resident, with their own growing house- 
holds, in the midst of some more bustling town, or in 
the bosom of some vast and whirling metropolis— let 
them look back and contrast the home of their own 
youthful days with the present home of their children, 
and they cannot fail to see the peculiar advantages of the 
former, and the besetting snares of the latter. Amid the 
ten thousand diversions of the city, frequently operating, 
alike upon parents and children, either drawing them 
from their own evening circles, or interrupting their 
hallowed quiet, by the infusion of countless frivolities, 
there is imminent danger that household bonds will be- 
come extensively weakened— that parental influence will 
become circumscribed— that the home of youth will be 
poisoned, and the foundations of society become out of 
course. 

These dangers are somewhat proportionate, in any 
community, to the prevalence of a commercial spirit, 
with its many exciting and diverting influences. When 
have we heard of infidelity nurtured and growing strong 



PREFACE. 



xi 



amid rural hamlets; and when have we seen it there 
raising its destructive arm to strike down the family in- 
stitution, and destroy 1 he tender ties of connubial and 
parental and filial love? Never. These relations are too 
sacred there, where all that is most precious in memory 
is associated with the humble homes of youth. But 
it is in those communities where external excitements 
and influences have supplanted or corrupted the more 
genial bonds and restraints of home, where associations 
of delight cluster, less and less exclusively, around the 
retired domestic circle— it is there that infidelity is con- 
ceived, and rears its head, and utters its iron voice of 
war upon all that virtue holds dear. And wherever 
there exists a diversion of interest and attachment from 
the quiet scenes of home, there the most noxious influ- 
ences more easily prevail, and there is an easy tendency 
to all that is corrupt and desolate. 

But it is manifest that the whole world is assuming a 
more busy, excited aspect. The quiet of past ages seems 
to have given away to the commercial enterprise and 
busy spirit that, on every hand, is becoming prevalent 
The causes of external excitement are increasing, and, 
along with them, the current seems to set from, rather 
than to, the domestic circle, and parental influences are 
in danger of being overwhelmed. These causes are not 
confined to populous places, but they stretch out with 
our rail-roads and canals, by our newspapers and lectu- 
rers, into the hitherto most retired portions of our coun- 
try. There are more things out of doors, and fewer 
things within doors. The ends of the earth are brought 
together. Exciting topics of intelligence are borne to us 
on the wings of every wind. Commerce receives a new 



Xll 



PKEFACE. 



impulse and opens new temptations. Men are brought 
more into contact with those to whom they are stran- 
gers. Thus the sight of father and mother and home is 
in danger of becoming obsolete amid the thousand new 
things that are crowding on the minds, and awakening 
the wonder and the enterprise and ambition of the vigor^ 
ous and the joung. 

It cannot justly excite our astonishment, then, to find 
the value of home depreciated,, its influences weakened, 
and its restraints less regarded. Sons often seem to look 
upon the parental abode as the place of mere boarding 
and lodging, and the opportunities of parental inspection, 
and the culture of those social feelings which chasten 
and sweeten life, become circumscribed to the few fleet- 
ing moments of a hurried repast. And thus becomes 
formed a taste for every thing abroad, and for but little 
at home. 

It is for this taste that Satan is ready and diliaPnt to 
provide. And hence are set on foot shows, conviviali- 
ties, plays, and entertainments, in countless multitude, 
to crowd on the distracted attention, and to steal even 
the hours of needful quiet and repose— to do their part 
in turning men loose from home, and breaking those hal- 
lowed social bonds which are the strong guards of viitue, 
and among the firmest barriers to vice. All these things 
come of those new and rapid developments of society, 
which have occurred in recent years, and the progress of 
which is to be more and more astonishing 

To give these tendencies a more healthful direction, 
lyceums, literary associations, and kindred institutions 
of various kinds have been laudably set on foot, and, so 
far as wisely regulated, tend to impart correctness' to 



PREFACE. 



Xlll 



public taste, and a more elevated tone to public morals, 
But while these institutions may be made subservient of 
great good, they can never prove an equivalent to those 
hallowed associations of home, the absence of which can 
never be compensated. And it may be also partially at- 
tributable to the same cause thai there has been, of late 
years, a remarkable multiplication of religious services, 
that this awakened public attention, that goes so instinc- 
tively forth from home for its food and enjoyment, may 
find provided some healthful spiritual banquets. But it 
behooves us to guard, lest, while we seek lawfully to ac- 
commodate ourselves to these tendencies, we should 
seem to give them too great a sanction. And we are 
not to overlook, that one tendency of these multiplied re- 
ligious services (we may be allowed to point out their 
dangers, without being understood to speak their condem- 
nation.) may be to diaw attention away from the reli- 
gious duties of the family — to lessen pious watchful- 
ness and instructions there, and to let down that high 
tone of sacred importance which should ever attach to 
the strict religious culture of the family circle. 
Parents are to be the chief cultivators of the household 
soil, and it is in vain for them to think that, with profit, 
they can, either to the teacher or the preacher, "J&rm 
out" the spiritual interests of their children. And how 
often do we witness a species of this error, and see pa- 
rents bringing their little ones within the reach of the 
more public instrumentalities, that they may receive 
there the tender impressions which they have failed to 
receive at home. And when childhood has become 
merged in youth, we see again these same unwilling 
children thrust into the sanctuary to be submitted to the 
2 



xiv 



PREFACE. 



exorcisms of some Boanerges, or the excitement of some 
wonderful measures, that those results may be produced, 
which might have been more reasonably looked for as 
the fruits of a wise and diligent domestic training, during 
the season of early childhood. 

That this hasty sketch of the present state and tenden- 
cies of society is generally correct, the author thinks will 
be freely admitted. It may augment the fears of many 
that society is on the eve of trying times, and that the 
strength of the powers of darkness will triumph, more 
than ever, over all that Piety holds dear. If these evils 
(some may reason) have crept over the present genera- 
tion, many of whose living parents are themselves the 
descendants of better times, what is to become of socie- 
ty, and household virtue and restraint, when the children 
of this more corrupt generation are, in turn, the parents 
of those that are to come, and when the golden days of 
more quiet times, and stronger family ties have passed to 
be remembered as fables? Let us look at this, not with 
despondency and fear, but in the spirit of christian hope, 
and confidence, and aroused action. "A prudent man 
foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself" — i. e. makes 
suitable preparation against the day of its coming. 

But how shall we effect this? Shall we attempt to 
stay the causes of all these changes, and to reinstate the 
security of more ancient times by lessening the tempta- 
tions of the present? Shall we, as a religious commu- 
nity, set our faces against all the improvements of the 
age? Shall we clip the wings of commerce? Shall we 
dry up the resources of ingenuity, and place our ban 
upon the spring- tide of prosperity? Shall we demolish 
our rail-roads and fill up our canals, and depopulate our 



PREFACE. 



XV 



towns and cities, and attempt to forbid that many shall 
"go to and fro in the earth and knowledge be increased?" 
because, forsooth, these things bring with them a vast 
amount of excitement and temptation, and seem to 
threaten the serious injury or ruin of some of our most 
cherished and important religious institutions! By no 
means. We are only witnessing a new phase of human 
society — a phase to which Christianity must accommo- 
date itself— a phase, to the demands of which, our ener- 
gies should be aroused. We are not to despond, because, 
at first, evil influences seem to preponderate. They are 
ever more on the alert, and our religious sensibilities are 
the slowest to be awakened to efficient action. 

It indeed cannot have occurred that Christianity has 
grown decrepid; that it cannot grapple with and sur- 
mount its new difficulties; that it must retire from busi- 
ness and excitement, lest its feeble flame be extinguish- 
ed, and that it must therefore oppose all advancement of 
the physical aud Intellectual energies of a fallen world, 
lest it be found inadequate to its task of regenerating and 
ruling iti 

No. It is not thus that we relinquish its claim to be 
£{ the power of God and the wisdom of God." Though, 
through the tardiness and ill-discipline of its earthly 
host, it may ever seem, for a while, to wane under the 
more rapidly developing powers of an unsanctified world, 
still it will rise and continue to rise, until, its present dif- 
ficulties proving its eventual advantages, it meets with 
the fulfillment of prophecy, that "Every valley shall be 
exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: 
and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough 
places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, 
and all flesh shall see it." 



xvi 



PREFACE. 



The application of these remarks is plain. Do we 
behold the family institution in danger of waning before 
the excitements of the age — its restraints in danger of 
being diminished — its hallowed influences in danger of 
being overwhelmed? Then there is the louder call upon 
the fidelity of all who can exert the least counteracting 
influence. And among all, and above all, let the pulpit 
be heard to speak forth from its eminence, and warn of 
the increasing dangers of household neglect. Let voice 
answer to voice from the watch-towers of Zion, as her 
watchmen foresee the danger. Let them "cry aloud 
and spare not," wherever error prevails; being constant, 
patient and wise in their instructions. Let Bishops, and 
Elders, and Deacons be "ensamples unto the flock," 
each ruling "well his own house, having his children in 
subjection with all gravity." And let all, to whom in 
any measure is given the oversight of the flock of God, 
see to it, that while they are engaging with zeal in the 
various departments of benevolent effort, which are of 
more recent origin, that they do not enforce with dimin- 
ished, but with a proportionally increased earnestness the 
obligations of household duties. Labors, like virtues, are 
often to be valued according to their unobtrusiveness. 

To look after families — to teach, and warn, and ad- 
monish from house to house, or for parents to sit amid 
the quiet of their own domestic circles, and labor, and 
teach, and pray, savors but little of ostentation. But 
these nurseries are not to be neglected. The good that the 
people of God secure to the cause of Christ by their 
more public and high sounding efforts, is secured at a ru- 
inous cost, if the religious culture of christian households is 
thereby in the least relaxed. 



PREFACE. 



xvu 



If the following pages, which owe their origin to the 
views expressed above, shall be found, in the humblest 
degree, to contribute to the desired end, the author's 
wishes will be fully met. They were first prepared and 
delivered as discourses to the congregation under his 
pastoral charge, and are now, in their present form, 
Dedicated to the Maternal Association in connection 
with his church and people. The existence of that as- 
sociation was the occasion of their delivery from the pul- 
pit; and the interest manifested by its members, together 
with their personal efforts, have been one of the chief 
causes of their assuming this more permanent form. 

If, in the limited sphere of the author's personal ac- 
quaintance and influence, they should prove acceptable 
and useful, all his ambition will be gratified, while all his 
reasonable expectations will be fully answered. 

E. H. 

Second Presbyterian Church, > 
Troy, 2V. F., June, 1840. 5 



2 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTORY 



Every thing that God has made, he has made 
for his own glory. There is not a single soul or 
thing, law or relation, at present existing accord- 
ing to the first pure ordinance of heaven, but what 
has a religious adaptation. Every wonder and 
every law of physical nature is fitted to declare 
the glory of God to us, and to attract our medita- 
tions and our hearts upward to Him, 

If, then, even things inanimate, and their various 
relations and dependencies, may be declared to be 
religious, in the sense of being adapted to the high- 
est religious end — the glory of God ; surely all 
the divinely instituted social relations are of an 
eminently religious character. For religion con- 
sists in the right and holy exercise of the social 
affections toward God, and toward one another. 
And whatever institutions, therefore, God has es^ 



20 



INTRODUCTORY. 



tablished for the culture of the social feelings and 
relations of his intelligent creatures, must be pre- 
eminently religious. They have in view, more 
immediately than any thing else, the training of 
man for the love and worship of God, and, being 
themselves ordered and fashioned, in all their laws 
and relations, by Infinite Wisdom, they must con- 
stitute that earthly sphere, in which all the means 
of human sanctification are found resident and ef- 
ficient. 

Of these social institutions there are three, the 
character, modes and laws of which seem to be 
more directly ordained of God. There is, first, 
that great universal family which embraces all 
perfect and confirmed intelligencies above, over 
which Jehovah presides, as the ever-living and 
watchful Head, and in the midst of which is His 
peculiar glory and manifested presence. Here is 
the throne of His holiness and power, encircled, 
day and night, by the attendance and praises of 
His holy and His happy creatures. 

It is on earth that we find the other two reli- 
gious institutions or societies, holding a close rela- 
tion and similitude to their great prototype, and 
being the ordained earthly instrumentalities where- 
by our ruined race may be raised to the great and 
the perfect family above. These two are the 



INTRODUCTORY. *i 

Family and the Church. These institutions con- 
tain within themselves a sufficiency for the entire 
control and redemption of ruined man. They em- 
brace all of government that can lay claim to di- 
rect divine authority, and are, in themselves, 
therefore, sufficient for all its purposes. The ne- 
cessity of human governments arise not from the 
defect, but from the simple neglect of that which 
is divine. Such a necessity, it is readily conce- 
ded, exists, and such governments are recognised 
in scripture as holding a secondary authority over 
all men. 

But, though we do not look for the time ever to 
come, when the principles of the divine govern- 
ment will be so fully developed and established on 
earth, as to supersede the existing necessity of 
those that are human ; still we should seek to ap- 
proximate that developement, and God's people 
should learn more and more of the pre-eminent 
importance and efficiency of those institutions 
which have their origin in Infinite Wisdom, and 
are ordained by direct divine authority. 

The views taken in the following pages are 
mainly based, not merely on a connection, but on 
an actual similitude between the Family and the 
Church on earth, and the great Family above. 
The former are the miniatures of the latter, and 



22 



INTRODUCTORY. 



as such are intended as introductory to its hea- 
venly enjoyments. It is in the light of this simili- 
tude that the author attempts to exhibit the pa- 
rental relation and responsibilities. He hopes 
that, by the blessing of God, it may make an un- 
wonted impress upon some parents, concerning the 
high dignity and exalted duties of their station. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 



That the Church of Christ is a purely religious 
institution, is unquestionable. But that the family 
is as strictly and solely so, is not a conviction that 
is generally and definitely prevalent. It is re- 
garded as exerting a high moral influence ; as be- 
ing the proper nursery of the future man, and of 
the undying spirit : but it is far from being invest- 
ed, in the popular mind, with that high and hea- 
ven-derived religious character which properly 
attaches to it. It is the object of this chapter to 
show, that the Family is as strictly a religious in- 
stitution as the Church. Where the form of either 
exists without the indwelling spirit of piety, they 
are perverted and corrupt. The remark is equal- 
ly applicable to both, for an irreligious family is 
as essentially an abhorrence in the sight of God, 
as a soulless and corrupt church. 



24 the family. a religious institution. 

That God has established the social eel a* 
tion of the Faxily ciecle. is a full justification 
of the foregoing remarks. When He had laid the 
foundations of the earth, and fixed the bounds of 
the sea. and set in sure and lasting order all ma- 
terial things. He established the law of marriage 
also to regulate man. whom He had made a social 
and moral being. It was thus that, in this insti- 
tution. He laid the foundation of society, on which, 
the whole superstructure of morality and piety 
was to rest. Man was at that time, a holy being, 
and all the circumstances and relations that were 
then ordered concerning him. had reference to the 
holy end for which he was created. Therefore 
it is, that this family relation, being established by 
God for the right regulation and developement of 
holy man., is a purely religious institution. 

Yea. and it has even a pre-eminence over the 
church, in the fact of its pre- existence. It was 
the first religious institution. It was. as we shall 
see in subsequent chapters, an earthly type, pure 
and symmetrical, of the heavenly world : it was an 
appropriate nursery of newly created beings, and 
was fully adapted to prepare them tor that family, 
in which God is recognised, more directly, as the 
Father, and of which, in itself, it was the lovely 
miniature. 



THE FAMILY} A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 25 

The Church ranks after it in order of time, be- 
cause it ranks after it, in order of necessity. It 
was not until man, through the blinding influence 
of sin, lost sight of the great family above, that the 
church, with its rich provisions for man's fallen 
state, became necessary as a remedial institution, 
The church on earth is now a more extended type 
than the family, embodying, more palpably, to the 
darkened eye of man, the heavenly world, to which 
it is introductory. It is a new link inserted to re- 
connect the broken chain. Heaven being forgot- 
ten, the Church is the New Jerusalem which has 
come dozen from heaven, embosoming unnumbered 
blessings in the illustrations it affords to man of 
the glorious church above ; in the instructions it 
furnishes ; and in the regenerating and sanctifying 
grace it dispenses. 

Thus it appears, not only that the Family is as 
truly a religious institution as the Church, but 
that, in fact of priority at least, it claims a pre- 
eminence. And it is now, what it ever has been, 
and ever will be in this world, the great corner 
stone of the whole social religious superstructure.* 

* That the marriage relation was intended to be perpetual, is evi- 
dent from the words employed by the sacred writer, " Therefore 
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto 
his wife." It had evident reference to the posterity of this first pair, 

3 



26 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION* 

But both the character and the perpetuity of 
the Family, as a religious institution, is farther 
seen in the fact that God deals wtth axd recog- 
nises it as such. He gives promises unto the 
households of those who will fear Him and keep 
His commandments. He threatens household ca- 
lamities as the consequence of parental disobe- 
dience. He enjoins religious duties in families, 
Alluding to his commandments and ordinances, He 
says, " And ye shall teach them to your children, 
speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, 
and when thou walkest by the way, when thou 
liest down and when thou risest up : and thou shalt 
write them upon the door posts of thine house, and 
upon thy gates ; that your days may be multipli- 
ed and the days of your children in the land which 
the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as 
the days of heaven upon the earth." 

The scriptures abound with passages of like na- 

for of them only could the leaving of father or mother be predicated. 
And the words still following, " and they shall be one flesh," refer- 
riD 2 here, as they do, to a " man" leaving his father and mother and 
cleaving unto his " wife," and quoted as they are by our Saviour, 
« and they twain shall be one flesh," indicate clearly that, whatever 
we may say of the subsequent practice of polygamy, it had the re- 
verse of a sanction in the original institution of marriage. The ta- 
mily relation, therefore, as established and intended to be perpetual 
is the intimate and endeared relation, subsisting between one man and 
his one wife, and their immediate children. 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 27 

tare, most unequivocally confirming the declara- 
tion that God deals with families as religious insti- 
tutions. It is to the faithful discharge of household 
duties, and the consistent manifestation of family 
piety, that He makes the amplest promises of tem- 
poral and spiritual blessings : and to the neglect 
of these that He threatens the severest judgments. 

Under the old Dispensation which, though cere- 
monial, was typical of that which is more spiritual, 
family sacrifices were instituted ; especially the 
sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb by every household. 
And from the earliest ages of the world, as re- 
corded in scripture, the heads of households were 
accustomed to offer their household sacrifices. 
And as there can be no doubt that these sacrifices 
were of divine origin, we cannot but interpret their 
practice in the patriarchal, and subsequently in all 
the Israelitish families, as a seal, divinely set, to 
distinguish them as the primary religious commu- 
nities. 

God covenanted with Abraham and his seed ; 
and he established circumcision as the seal and 
token of his solemn covenant with the families of 
the Jews. Thus here we have, by God himself, 
in this covenant transaction, another distinct re- 
cognition of the family institution as one strictly 
religious. 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

Among the ten commandments, the requirements 
of which are moral, and therefore perpetual, the 
fifth was framed expressly for the Family; the 
second contains a striking instance of God's pur- 
posed dealings with families, and the fourth en- 
joins upon the parent the duty of direct and autho- 
ritative religious supervision of his household. 
And when it is borne in mind that these moral 
laws are based in the very nature of things, and 
therefore, ever have been and ever will be bind- 
ing, we can be no longer at a loss how to view 
the Family institution. Its recognition here, indi- 
cates decisively that it is in its character religious ; 
in its origin coeval, and in its purposed existence 
coextensive with the human race. 

We find, therefore, under the Christian Dispen- 
sation, the same distinct recognition of the Family. 
Religious duties are enjoined as pertaining to the 
household, and parents are bidden to bring up their 
children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 
A solemn covenant is perpetuated with believers 
in behalf of their children, so that we may say 
unto the parent, as Paul said unto the jailer, " Be- 
lieve and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.' 5 
There is a seal to this covenant, and it is employ- 
ed in the application of water to the children of 
believers. 



THE FAMILY} A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 29 

As far, then, as the divine dealings are concern- 
ed, the Family and the Church are equally recog- 
nised as strictly religious institutions. To the for- 
mer, as verily as to the latter, he gives his pre- 
cepts : of it he makes his requirements, and with 
it he establishes his covenant and seals it with an 
ordinance. So that the assemblage of all these 
signs seems to establish the full claim of the Fa- 
mily to a purely religious character. 

Still another fact which confirms the representa- 
tion of the family as a religious institution, is that 

THE OBSERVANCE, THE INTEGRITY, AND THE PROS- 
PERITY OF THESE INSTITUTIONS ARE FOUND CORRES- 
PONDENT WITH THE PREVALENCE OF TRUE RELI- 
GION. 

Where simple-hearted piety is the most preva- 
lent in a community, there the family relation is 
the most frequent, the most pure, the most happy, 
and the most prosperous. Religion never dwells 
in a community without dwelling pre-eminently in 
the family circles, and hallowing these nurseries 
of piety. There are not wanting illustrations of 
this fact. The history of Scotland and of the older 
states of New England, occur as among the more 
prominent modern demonstrations of this truth. 
And wherever, or whenever, piety has manifested 
that strength which has enabled it to stem the tide 
3* 



30 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

of persecution, its flame has been nourished upon 
the domestic altar, where parents twice and thrice 
a day have commended themselves and their little 
ones to the keeping of that Saviour, for whom they 
were actually counting all things but loss ; and in 
the service of whom they were led not merely to 
confess, but to feel that they knew not what a day 
would bring forth. Thus much for the actual de- 
pendence of true piety upon the cherishing influ- 
ences of the domestic relation. 

The reverse of this picture is seen in the fact, 
that when the " love of money" and the " pride 
of life" begin to gain the ascendency, and to dis- 
lodge true piety, their first inroads are made upon 
the family institution. It is less frequent; it is 
established later in life; it is corrupted by fash- 
ions, and frivolities, and luxuries. Where this 
relation is neglected or deferred, there arise pe- 
culiar vices ; and where, when established, it is 
perverted to mere purposes of pride and heartless 
socialities, its sacred character is broken down ; 
the strictness of its religious teachings and obser- 
vances are relaxed, and eventually relinquished, 
save the mere forms which are in some cases re- 
tained. And the corruptions of the church thus 
creep upon it, insidiously, through these lesser re- 
ligious institutions, which are always first affected 
by unhallowed influences. 



THE PA3IILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 31 

And as religion still declines, the permanency, 
and the endearments, and the sanctity of the fami- 
ly institution decline with it. And there is no 
surer way of determining the proper moral grade 
of society than by inspecting the state of these 
domestic relations. As we recede from christian 
lands, and approximate the darkness of heathen- 
ism, we discover the family institution becoming 
more and more corrupt, until its last traces are ob- 
literated by the waves of idolatry, 

And thus, with the two extremes of human so- 
ciety before us, as they may be seen in the glens 
of Scotland on the one hand, and in the South Sea 
Islands on the other, we have the irresistible de- 
monstration that there is a correspondence, result- 
inn- from a divinely established connection, be- 
tween the state of true piety and the condition of 
the family institution. There cannot be mention- 
ed a more awful mark of deep depravity and de- 
gradation, as characterising any community, than 
the fact that the family institution is virtually ban- 
ished. It is the crowning evidence that the spirit 
of God has flown entirely away, and given up the 
people to an unaileviated degradation. 

As we inspect the constitution of earthly society, 
whether we look at its relation to temporal com- 
fort, or to religious and spiritual ends, we find in 



32 THE FAMILY ? A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

the family, the great corner stone. Take this 
away, and religion is gone — all moral restraints 
are broken up, and the bonds of society are but 
brittle clay. But though you overthrow the min- 
istry and its altars, though you destroy the Sab- 
bath as a general observance, though you have 
legislative enactments against all other religious 
institutions and observances, while yet the family 
remains, there may be religion; its fires may 
bum, and its incense arise from family altars, and 
God may yet keep his covenant with some of the 
children of men. But when this first and last re- 
ligious institution is abolished, then it is that all is 
gone : the last star that shed its twinkling rays on 
society is extinguished. It is the morning and the 
evening star. 

Infidelity bears its testimony that the 
Family is a religious institution, and that it 
is one of eminent importance. This may be seen 
by a moment's observation of the course of infidel- 
ity concerning it. 

It is truly said that the children of this world 
are wiser in their day and generation than the 
children of light. The people of God do not seem 
as well to understand the high importance of puri- 
fying these primary religious institutions, and main- 



THE FAMILY. A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 33 

taining godliness there, as the devil evidently un- 
derstands the importance to his cause, of vitiating 
and overthrowing them. Infidelity is opposed to 
the marraige institution. Its disciples treat its 
claims with wantonness, and oftentimes with fear 
and aroused opposition. They may not always 
themselves discern the precise relation which the 
Family holds to all religion, but the prince of the 
power of the air that tcorketh in the children of dis- 
obedience discerns it with a penetrating sagacity. 
And he urges on his disciples to lay the axe at 
this root of the tree of life, while the people of God 
seem to be but feebly sensible of the duty of rally- 
ing for its defence and maintenance. 

Infidelity may labor with ponderous blows, and 
with fearful success to break down the ministry and 
overthrow the sanctuaries, and crumble down that 
great pillar of the more public religious institu- 
tions — the Sabbath ; but its blows are most fearful 
when aimed at the family institution. The fires 
on the public altars will assuredly go out, if the 
fires on the private altars are extinguished, and 
the family sanctuary is overthrown. 

It is not often that a systematic attack is made 
on the family institution : for it is of the wise or- 
dering of Him who established it, and who knows 
its importance, that its entrenchment amid human 



34 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION, 

sympathies is so strong as to bar the courage, even 
of Satan. Yes: men will give up any thing 
quicker than the endeared sanctuaries of home, 
and wife, and children. We should team, then, 
the high importance of this religious institution 
from the fact on the one hand, that our heavenly 
Father has guarded it so firmly ; and from the 
fact, on the other, that Infidelity looks upon it with 
such deep malignity. It walks around, and we 
sometimes hear the voice of its roaring ; but it 
dares not the onset, while as yet * God is known 
in her palaces for a refuge." Bat when God is 
provoked to leave a people, and their households, 
then the onset and the triumph of Infidelity may 
come. 

So it was in wicked France. The roaring Lion 
stood, with the altars, and the priesthood, and the 
Sabbath, and the Bible under his feet ; but vet 
there was jealousy in his heart, and anger in his 
eye, and an awfully suppressed restlessness in his 
mighty frame— for he looked at the family insti- 
tution still remaining. He looked again— God 
had left it! He crouched— lie sprang: and with 
one terrific roar- the loudest that the world ever 
heard, and that sent dismay through every Chris- 
tian land — he announced the completion of his tri- 
umph!! A miserable female, hunted up from 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 35 

amid the loathsome vileness of Paris, was set up in 
the centre of that enlightened city — was decked 
with garlands and was worshipped as the goddess 
of Licentiousness and Reason ! 

Behold how extremes meet ! No sooner had 
the pride of human reason cast away the grace of 
God, and repudiated all religion ; no sooner had 
it proclaimed its liberation as perfect, and attempt- 
ed to soar upon its own wings, than it fell like Lu- 
cifer ! And that clay, the most refined city of a 
Christian country descended and shook hands with 
the Sandwich Islander, in his cruel and degrading 
rites of obscenity and blood ! Shook hands, did I 
say? The poor Islander, I can rather conceive, 
would start back with horror and say, as, for once, 
he looked upon those lower than himself— " I am 
holier than thou" 

If, then, the Family is the first and the last 
hold of religion— if it is that which, above all 
other earthly institutions, God has surrounded 
with the strongest guards, and if it is that, at 
which timid infidelity growls, and unbridled infi- 
delity leaps, we have abundant circumstantial evi- 
dence that it is a religious institution of the high- 
est importance. And all doubt about the propri- 
ety of this appellation, in its strictest sense, van- 
ishes, when we view these facts in connection 



36 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

with the previous considerations, viz., that it was 
solemnly constituted and appointed by God as a 
perpetual institution, and that he distinctly recog- 
nises its pre-eminent religious character, both in 
the dealings of his Providence, and in the cove- 
nant of his grace. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 
(continued.) 

The farther we contemplate the family, the 
more fully will be developed that view of its cha- 
racter which we have given in the former chap- 
ter. The evidence thus far adduced is of an ex- 
ternal character. But the more deeply we de- 
scend into this sacred institution, and explore the 
principles and adaptations of its constitution, we 
bring to view a mass of internal evidence estab- 
lishing, with irresistible power, the same impres- 
sion. No one can contemplate the pure relations 
there subsisting, and their adaptation to the great 
purposes of our present and future being, and the 
principles on which alone its adaptations can be 
answered, without feeling that he is contemplating 
a structure, on every part of which should be writ- 
ten, "Holiness to the Lord." 

4 



SS THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

It was something else than a matter of " senti- 
ment 5 ' that led our Saviour to " Cana of Galilee," 
when there was a marriage there. The recogni- 
tion of the family was among the earliest public 
acts of His ministry. He sealed that day's trans- 
action with the glory of a miracle. 

It is right to insist that the religious character 
of the family be more exhibited and enforced from 
the pulpit. Parents should be made to feel that 
they have responsibilities of a most solemn cha- 
racter resting on them. The christian communi- 
ty need instruction and quickening on this subject, 
and it is ample time that line upon line and pre- 
cept upon precept be given. 

The circumstances of irreligious parents may be 
forcibly and solemnly exhibited. They are placed 
at the head of a religious institution, but there they 
stand without piety. Their families were design- 
ed for religious ends. The little community is 
organized, and the parent is set at its head to rule it 
in the fear of God. But, alas ! there is no spirit- 
uality there. The institution is perverted. The 
parent holds a place, as the highest officer in this 
religious society, while he is utterly devoid of the 
first great requisite for his station. Does the eye 
of such a parent peruse these pages? How often, 
let me ask, have you falsely consoled yourself that 



THE FAMILY; A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 39 

you hold no place of religious obligation, like 
many professing christians, only to have your un- 
worthiness appear ? But you do hold a place of 
most solemn and important religious obligation. 
There is no earthly institution more strictly sacred, 
in its origin, in its design, and in its adaptations, 
than the family. And it is one of these institutions 
of which you have the charge. But you nave no 
religion ! 

Perhaps you take the name of God in vain ; or 
perhaps you are dishonest in your dealings ; or, 
if not guilty of such sins, you live in the habitual 
disregard of all religious things. Now what would 
you think of an irreligious minister ; of a dishon- 
est, or of a swearing minister! But if you are ad- 
dicted to alt or to either of these habits, while you 
are at the head of a household, your own charac- 
ter is the like of such a minister ; for he is but 
the high officer of one religious institution, while 
you are the head officer of another. He perverts 
and degrades his office ; you pervert and degrade 
yours. And an angry and avenging God will 
cause a similar condemnation to overtake the sac- 
rilege of each. 

What would you think of a prayerless minister ? 
But your character, while yet you are prayerless. 
is the like of his. A family without religion is as 
inconsistent, and as truly a distressing spectacle? 



40 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

as an irreligious church. Ah, beloved reader, 
you may have often judged hard of inconsistent 
professors, and of faulty ministers, while you have 
falsely consoled yourself that you are not guilty of 
such sins. But look upon yourself in the religious 
office you hold, and which you are perverting, and 
then remember the words of the Apostle, " There- 
fore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou 
art that judgest : for wherein thou judgest another 
thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest 
doest the same things." 

It is a sad thing for hearers to sit under a god- 
less minister, or to be associated with a prayerless 
and graceless church. Such a minister will sink 
to an awful condemnation, and his people may 
mostly perish with him. But it is also an awful 
thing to be an irreligious parent ; and the condem- 
nation of such an one will be great. And it is a 
great calamity to be born a child into such a 
family ; to come into existence in the midst of an 
institution designed as a religious one, but where 
there is no religion: to be educated in a family 
where the salt of divine grace should be mingled 
with the influences of tenderer years, but where 
there is no savour of piety. 

I look upon a congregation that sit under the 
ministrations of an heretical and wicked minister, 



THE FAMILY; A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 41 

and I say— poor people ! So I look upon the chil- 
dren of a family, over which irreligious parents 
preside, and I say— poor dependent children; bora 
in the pale of an institution that should protect you. 
but there is no piety there : there is no hedge of 
covenant favor about you ! Where such a scene 
is contemplated, the following language of another 
seems just: "If there he one curse more bitter 
than another to man, it is to be the offspring of an 
irreligious home— of a home where the voice of 
praise and prayer ascends not to God, and where 
ties of human affection are not purified and eleva- 
ted by the refining influence of religious feeling." 

Perhaps the full justice and force of the preced- 
ing remarks may fail of being appreciated. If so. 
it will result from overlooking the reason that led 
to the establishment of the family. It was estab- 
lished as a nursery for immortal spirits. Does 
not a mother love her child ; and, if she is in the 
discreet exercise of her affections, will she not be 
watchful of the one to whom she may commit any 
portion of its training? And what can excite her 
feelings to a higher pitch, than the discovery of 
wanton, and deliberate, and persisted neglect of 
her own infant ? And what do we think of a nurse 
that can receive it with professions of tenderness 

and affection, and then thus abuse it ? But God is 
4* 



42 THE FABULYj A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

the "Father of our spirits." He creates immor- 
tal beings, and he loves them too with a strength 
that maternal affection can but feebly typify. He 
has demonstrated this love by the whole scheme 
of redemption. Having such love to infant spirits, 
think you he will be careless in providing for them? 
Or think you he will withhold his righteous and 
awful displeasure from those who trifle with, or 
even neglect their interests? Behold the virtu- 
ous excitement and power of a frantic mother, as 
she looks upon the abuse that is threatening the de- 
struction of her child: and. think you, will the 
anger of an heavenly and an Almighty Father be 
tolerable when he visits the blood of ruined souls 
upon the heads of ungodly parents? How a wild 
those scripture intimations that God is hereafter to 
require at our lands those souls, of which, in any 
of the relations of life, he has constituted us the 
guardians ! 

Beloved reader, if you are a parent, remember 
that it is no equivocal indication of God's love to 
and care for your infants, that he has bound them 
to your love so closely. W hat, on earth, is strong- 
er than parental affection! And should we not 
learn from this, that God will not commit them to 
our training without the strongest securities that 
earth knows— even the guarantees of parental of. 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 43 

fection ? If we love them, God loves them more. 
Our love is bat a feeble scion of His. And if we 
visit with the extreme of punishment those who 
would injure the bodies of our children, what shall 
we not expect from God towards those who, not 
only by neglect, but by the positive influence of 
an irreligious example, educate their souls for 
eternal death ! 

Indeed it may well be asked if there is, on earth, 
a more pitiable, and, in prospect, a more dreadful 
condition than that of an irreligious parent. 

The obligation of united and daily household 
prayer occurs to our view here too plainly to be 
passed in silence. What is a religious institution 
or society without prayer ; whose members never 
unite in calling upon the name of the Lord? 
Why ! it is as reasonable for us to assemble upon 
the Sabbath in the sanctuary, and talk of our 
worldly affairs; and make the sacred place a 
weekly resort for friendly, or business interviews ; 
and banish the sacred desk, and the sound of 
prayer, and religious instruction — -it is as reason- 
able so to do, as to live in a family where no prayer 
is heard ; no religious instruction is given ; no 
songs of praise ascend. Such a family presents 
us with the spectacle of a religious institution in 
ruins, as truly as would such a sanctuary. Both 



44 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

are perverted from their religious designs. And 
while such a church as has been described, God 
will surely visit with judgments, we are not to 
wonder that it is written of such families, 66 1 will 
jpour out my fury on the families that call not on my 
name" God will show in the end of his dealings 
with prayerless families that he has ever regarded 
them as perverted religious institutions. And the 
parents of such will find no fitter companions in 
their destruction than those who fall from the high 
places of the church. O the condemnation of un- 
faithful religious officers ! 

The great object of the family can never be 
answered while household prayer is totally neg- 
lected. Religion is not its secondary object. Its 
introduction there is not merely to impart a little 
healthful savour. Religion is the great design of 
the family— that to which all its arrangements, 
and all its influences should be adapted. Then 
godliness extends every where— then it permeates 
society — then it mingles with and controls every 
habit and feeling of man, and we begin to be like 
the angels of God. 

What an outrage upon religion, then, is a family 
where there is no prayer— no religious instruc- 
tion—no priest of the household to be found read- 
ing the oracles of God, and kneeling to guide the 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 45 

devotions and the praise of the little circle ! There 
seems to be a species of sacrilege attributable to 
that man who neglects the altar of his household. 

The truth is that, such is the constitution of hu- 
man society, we cannot escape the most solemn 
religious obligations. They are upon us: and 
unless we acquit ourselves with fidelity, they will 
testify against us. 

There is one object to be subserved by the church, 
the importance of which should be more deeply felt 
by all Us officers and members. That object is 
to watch over and cherish the family. It does not 
seem to us that all the high ends of the earthly 
church are answered when the ministry and ordi- 
nances are maintained, and a watchful care and 
christian discipline is exercised, over its individual 
members. The church and the family are intend- 
ed to have, and do have a high reciprocal action 
upon each other. The order and the piety of the 
one indicates pretty clearly and definitely the or- 
der and piety of the other. And when we consider 
that the family is the oldest institution, and that 
its existence as an organized and visible body is the 
most essential to the maintenance of piety, being 
its last hold in any community, it cannot fail to 
appear that the church owes a peculiar duty to 
the families which repose in its bosom, and which 
look to it for counsel and defence. 



46 THE FAjIILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

The great object of the church of Christ, as a 
spiritual body, is to manifest the glory of God in 
the salvation of sinners. But considered as an or- 
ganized body it may and does have lesser ends 
which are tributary to the greater, It is manifest 
that one of the most important of these tributary 
ends is to overlook families, as the primary insti- 
tutions, of which, in fact, the visible church is but 
the confederation. 

It is vain, then, for churches to expect perma- 
nent prosperity so long as they neglect this mani- 
fest duty — so long as they allow these primary re- 
ligious institutions to languish — their altars to be 
deserted, and strict religious education to be nee- 
lected in these sanctuaries of the young. It is 
unavailing to alledge that the church cannot inter- 
fere with households. The duties of households 
are prescribed in the Word of God, and it is the 
object of the church, by kindly influences, to se- 
cure to the greatest possible extent, the faithful 
discharge of all commanded duties. 

It is the duty of every christian parent to secure 
the most hallowed influences in his own household, 
and to hedge around his little ones with religious 
truth and ordinances. It is not enough that it is 
required of such a man to lead a personal life con- 
sistent with his profession. He covenants to live 



THE FAMILY. A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 47 

and to labor for God in all the relations of society. 
In every lawful station he is but the Lord's ser- 
vant, and he exposes himself to friendly christian 
remonstrance and dealing whenever he fails to do 
his utmost to advance the Redeemer's kingdom. 
If he neglects his duty to his household, which is 
alike a dictate of nature and of grace, it is the duty 
of the church- — a duty which, with Christ and their 
brother, they have covenanted to perform — to look 
after him, to interpose the influence of their love 
and fidelity, and to excite him to the protection 
from Satan of the little ones whose parental guard- 
ianship he seems to have thoughtlessly abandon- 
ed. This duty is owed from the church to the bro- 
ther whom they have covenanted to counsel and 
cherish ; and the feeble cry of his tender infants, 
upon whom the seal of the church has been set, 
pleads with the brethren for fidelity. By baptism 
the children become connected with the church, 
and that connection should insure to them, for their 
own sakes, during their defenceless years, the in- 
terposition of the church, if there arises any dan- 
ger that, through parental negligence, Satan may 
prey upon their souls. Who can doubt that if] 
upon such views, the church would faithfully and 
kindly act, in its supervision of families, it would 
remain no longer an ideal, but would become a 



48 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

palpable advantage, which results from bringing 
infant children within the pale of the church? 

The Church owes duties to the children of its 
members, in the discharge of which its officers 
should, from time to time, and in a spirit of love, 
enter every household, and enforce with kindness, 
but firmness, the duties of religion there. There 
is not a little babe, in the household of any of its 
members, but what stretches its helpless hands to 
the covenanting church. In it, the church should 
feel an interest; and to it, she should discharge her 
duties. 

This obligation of fidelity on the part of the 
church, through its officers and members, to the 
families and the children of the covenant, is a mat- 
ter of exceeding interest and importance. It can 
be partially discharged, 

1. By requiring all parents to bring their chil- 
dren and have the seal of the covenant set upon 
them ; that, in the administration of the ordinance, 
they may be reminded what the family is — what 
parental duties are— what covenant promises are 
given, and may be solemnly stimulated to the dis- 
charge of their high duties. 

2. By requiring the establishment and mainte- 
nance of a family altar — that God may be acknow- 
ledged in the family, and that there may be, at 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 49 

least, this partial answering of the end for which 
it was instituted. 

These things we have a scriptural right to re- 
quire, and I see not how those can be regarded as 
in regular standing with the church, who neglect 
them. And it is a subject which should be so- 
lemnly pondered, whether the churches of our own 
and every land should not awake to a more strict 
exercise, in these particulars, of fraternal over- 
sight. 

3. But still more may be done. Religious in- 
struction should be given in the family. The form 
or seasons of this cannot be prescribed, neither 
can its neglect be well made a matter of church 
interference. But much may be done, from house 
to house, to inculcate this duty on parents, and to 
aid and encourage them in attention to it. 

4, Um\ r earied diligence should be given to this 
oversight of families. It may require labor and 
patience of the officers of any church. And the 
labor is unostentatious. It does not thunder from 
the pulpit— it is not seen in multiplied meetings- 
it does not raise its head to attract the notice of 
men ; but, like many other influences that are un- 
seen, its results are the most powerful and bene- 
ficial. The labor is more like that of the pruning 

5 



50 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

knife, which promises but little, yet accomplishes 
much in the season of fruit. 

And here an essay might be easily appended on 
the mis-direction of modern efforts. And, if inap- 
propriate to this place, it surely would not be in- 
appropriate to this age. The church has yet to 
learn that her highest interests are seriously suf- 
fering, not from the want of attention and labor, 
but from its misapplication. If labor was so be- 
stowed as to be less seen, it would be more felt. 

The author cannot close this chapter without 
adverting to one evil, which has an intimate con- 
nection with this subject, He refers to the prac- 
tice, too prevalent among our purest churches, of 
multiplied religious services. They are not to be 
indiscriminately condemned. At special seasons, 
such a multiplication may be moderately demand- 
ed. But it is a question of serious moment, whe- 
ther the growing system of recent years is not 
feeding on the life blood of the family institution. 
The solemnity and influence of the family altar 
may be overwhelmed by the more imposing and 
exciting services of the congregation, while oppor- 
tunities of family religious instruction are almost 
entirely crowded out of the Sabbath, their appro- 
priate day. 

It may be said that the demand for religious in- 



THE FAMILY} A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 51 

struction is increased. Then make every house 
a sanctuary. Erect an altar to the Lord under 
every roof. Let a portion of every Sabbath— by 
concert, if thought desirable— be devoted to family 
instruction. Surely then, if ever, the demand will 
be met. Home religion is that which saves the 
soul. It is less deceptive than the religion of the 
sanctuary. There may be found families, the pa- 
rents and the children of which appear well abroad 
and are credible professors, but at whose home 
religion is scarcely mentioned. Perhaps such a 
family, if they made their dwelling more of a 
sanctuary, would not desire to go so much abroad 
to worship God, And we might be sure that their 
religion would never suffer for the change. And 
we venture to predict, that were public religious 
services, in many places, to be somewhat curtailed 
in number, that the families that have the most 
home religion would be the last to complain of any 
personal deprivation by the change. 

But how can this be done, asks some reader, 
who is willing to allow the excellence of the theory. 
It is in point to reply, that it will never be effected 
by a system that assumes it to be an impossibility. 
It will never be effected by the too popular reason- 
ing, "families will not do so, and, therefore, we 
must meet the exigency as well as we can, though 
our practices may be attended with some evil." 



52 THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 

We err, when we assume that God's appointed 
means are impracticable. If the family is His in- 
stitution, then it can be what it ought to be, and 
that is the only assumption, on which we are law. 
fully to act. The way of man's devising is, gene- 
rally, to his eye the most promising, and to his 
feelings the most agreeable ; while God's ways, 
though the most laborious and self-denying, and 
the least ostentatious, are the most faithful and ef- 
ficient. Let us be careful, then, in prosecuting 
the Redeemer's cause, lest, by following some other 
channels than divine institutions, and appointed 
means, we be found working against the laws of 
nature and the laws of covenant grace. 

We wisely labor, then, when we seek to con. 
vert every house into a sanctuary — to make every 
dwelling a bethel— to cause the voice of religious 
instruction to be heard in every family— to habit- 
uate the parents and the children to convene for 
religious counsel and prayer. In this channel, let 
our efforts be increasingly directed. And the 
most exalted condition of earthly society will be 
attained, when we can look upon every abode of 
man as the house of God— upon each family as a 
little church, in the bosom of which, immortals are 
reared, secure from the more destructive snares of 
a wicked world. Then, when we might look upon 



THE FAMILY, A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION. 53 

a crowded city, or on the little village that reposes 
amid the solitude of the hills, or that is set like a 
jewel in the bosom of a verdant plain, we should 
behold the spires of the greater sanctuaries, rising 
amid innumerable lesser ones, around each and 
all of which, the favor of the Lord is constantly 
encamping. 

Then, while the services of the sanctuary would 
be the head of the means for religious instruction, 
they would be viewed as the head and not as the 
body— as the more prominent means and not as the 
great absorbing instrumentality, whereby God is to 
make the "peace" of Zion to be "like a river," 
and her "righteousness as the waves of the sea." 



5* 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 

It lies at the foundation of all correct apprehen- 
sion and discharge of parental responsibilities, that 
parents take the right view of the principles, on 
which the family is constituted, and the model, if 
any, after which it is fashioned. When this view 
is once clearly taken, the great end of the family, 
as a religious institution, will be more apparent, 
and the sphere assigned to each member of it will 
be more distinctly defined. 

It surely harmonizes with the similes frequent- 
ly used in the holy scriptures, and pre-eminently 
sanctioned by our Saviour, that Heaven* should 
be adduced as the Model of a Christian Family. 
And we shall find that the more prominent rela- 
tions, there subsisting between God and his crea- 
tures, have their counterparts in this miniature 

* This word is here and subsequently used to signify that relation 
which subsists between God and his obedient creatures. 



Ob THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 

earthly institution. This being true, we are only 
to inspect the principles, on which the order and 
happiness of heaven are based, that we may dis- 
cover those which should be the rule of our earth- 
ly households. And the parent is to look at the 
great principles which control the conduct of God 
to his creatures, as those, the like of which, are to 
direct him, in the administration of his lesser and 
deputed dominion. 

God styles himself our Father. We are prone 
to regard this relation as rather nominal— as a 
title that he has borrowed from the endearing rela- 
tions of this life, But we should rather regard 
him as the one, to whom the title originally be- 
longs. God is our Father, and he is our only real 
Father. Are we the offspring of an earthly fa- 
ther?— are we guarded by the love of an earthly 
parent? — and is our infant dependence upon him? 
These things are true only in a secondary sense. 
But, of our Heavenly Father, it mav be said, in a 
higher and truer sense, than it ever can be of 

mortals, that we are the offspring of His power 

the protegees of His love, and that we are depen- 
dent upon Him for our daily existence, and our 
daily blessings. So that all the natural, lawful 
relations which subsist between earthly parents 
and their children, subsist, on ampler and un- 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 



57 



changing grounds, between those very children, 
and their Heavenly Father. As the great prime 
Author of our existence, God is our Father — as 
the One whose care of us and compassion toward 
us is of old and unchangeable, he is our Father — 
as the One unto whom we are allied by an inti- 
mate and eternal dependence, he is our Father. 

In the relation, then, of God to us, we have the 
first, great idea of a Parent— not that idea of the 
relation first acquired by us, but its original model. 

Is it not, therefore, the reverse of the truth to 
suppose that God, after he had instituted the rela- 
tions of this life, and beheld the endearments of the 
family circle, borrowed from it the title of Hea- 
venly Father, and assumed it as a symbol of his 
compassion ? Does he not wear the title as origi- 
nally his, and has he not modelled the parental re- 
lation after his own relation to his creatures;* so 
that parents, at the head of their households, bor- 
row the title of Father from God, and are not only 
fashioned after his image, as to the natures they 

* If this little book should chance to fall under the eye of a critical 
reader, the author would refer him to the comments of an able writer 
in the Biblical Repository, Vol. XII., p. 366-7, on Genesis i. 26, 27. 
The comments referred to surely seem to teach that in the words 
{t Let us make man in our image,' 1 '' &c, a reference may be had to 
man's being modelled not only in his individual character, after the* 
nature, but= in his social condition, after the relations of heaven.. 



58 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 



possess, but also as to the sphere in which they 
move, and the duties which devolve upon them? 

We discover, then, this leading principle of the 
family constitution, that the father is deputed of 
God to hold that relation to his household — more 
especially to his children — which is a miniature 
of the relation subsisting between Jehovah and his 
creatures. As God is the creator of all, so he 
has made the father, in a secondary sense, the 
author of his children's being; and thus he be- 
comes their nominal, while God is their real Fa- 
ther. 

Is God a creator of infinite benevolence, who 
delights in watching over, and securing the inter- 
ests of every creature he has made ? See how, in 
the strength of parental affection, he has made a 
deep impress of this, his image, on the father's 
spirit. All his love and unwearied diligence for 
his little ones are the manifestations of this image; 
and they are, therefore, rightfully, and with a 
transcendent sweetness, appealed to by our Sa- 
viour, and the New Testament writers, as but the 
feeble illustrations of our heavenly Father's love. 
"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to 
them that ask him," 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 59 

And to complete the parental image, God has 
given the father authority over his household. 
Both by the laws of God and man, this authority 
is confirmed; and, within certain wholesome limi- 
tations, it is absolute ; and there is implanted in 
the hearts of his little children, a sense of its right- 
fulness and propriety. And thus it is that the 
father is deputed of God to hold a relation to his 
household analagous to that which the great Fa- 
ther holds to the great family of man. * 

Look, then, and see how completely, and with 
what infinite wisdom, God has constituted the 
family. It is a small circle. But it is a com- 
plete and a perfect nursery for a future and a 
happy existence. Here, in the apparent father, 
is the representative of the real Father in heaven, 
and the children look upon him as the author of 
their existence- — as the one, bone of whose bone, 
and flesh of whose flesh, they are made. From 
this apparent father, they receive protection — 
they receive their. daily bread — their shelter from 
the storm— their attention in sickness — their coun- 
sel in health — their sympathy in troubles, while 

* By the term Father is signified the united parents. They are 
supposed to be one in counsel and one in action. The won 3 s Father 
and Parents^ are therefore frequently used synonymously throughout 
these pages. 



60 THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 

all these gifts are only through this father, and 
from God. Still so God dispenses them. And 
why? Why! that all the embryo relations of fu- 
ture and growing existence may be compressed 
into a circle fitted to the infant powers of the new- 
born intellect, and to the forming habits of the 
new-created spirit! 

The little child is born, but he cannot under- 
stand who gave him being, who causes the rav- 
ishing sensations of a healthful physical existence, 
to rush in upon his wondering and his gazing 
spirit. But soon it knows its mother, and learns 
to leap with joy at the sound of its father's foot- 
steps. They become the first, rightful objects of 
his affections and his confidence. He regards 
them as possessing all things, and his infant°eyes 
wait upon them for the supply of every need. 
And thus the child exercises towards them those 
feelings which, for a season, are right; but which, 
as its infant powers expand, should be hereafter 
transferred to God. They stand as the represen- 
tatives of God to the child; being constituted the 
stewards of its affections, its habits, and its ener- 
gies. They receive from it love, obedience, de- 
votedness; not as the matters of their proprietor- 
ship, but as tributes which, like faithful stewards, 
they are to transfer to God ; that they may enter 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 61 

heaven, saying, "Behold I, and the children whom 
the Lord hath given me." 

The constitution, then, of the earthly family be- 
ing so precisely similar to that of which God is 
the Father, it is both reasonable and scriptural to 
suppose, that there must be an equally striking 
harmony between the ends they contemplate, and 
the principles, or rules, on which their government 
is to be administered. And thus the lesser fami- 
ly appears to be, in the relations and dispositions 
it should cherish, an embryo of the greater : the 
traits that should and may be there cultivated, are 
the very traits which will fit us to be the affec- 
tionate and dutiful children of God. 

How sweetly and fully has God provided for 
the security of every portion of our existence! 
The family is the constituted sanctuary of our in- 
fancy and childhood ; and when we begin to ripen 
in understanding, the church stands, with its open 
arms, to acknowledge, guard, and cherish us ; and 
when death removes, it but translates us to the 
sinless and eternal church, whose foundation is 
immovable, whose walls are salvation, and whose 
gates are praise. God is the ruler in heaven; 
Christ is the head of the church, and the father is 
the head of the family. And while there is a 

close relation, and intimate correspondence be- 
6 



62 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 



tween the institutions, their designs and their laws? 
there is also a like relation and correspondence 
between their presiding officers. In short, the 
institutions are the same, under different phases. 
So that we have the church in the family* — the 
church in the world, and the church redeemed! 
What a perfect and harmonious gradation ! How 
sweetly and tenderly has God adapted the rela- 
tions of this life to fit us, by a right training and 
developement, for the relations of the life to come ! 

We have thus considered the earthly father, in 
his allotted sphere, as a striking type of the God 
and Father of us all. It will be found that the 
Scriptures even apply the name of "gods" to men 
in certain official stations; the same word being 
used, in the original, to designate these human of- 
ficers as is used to designate the only living and 

* Our Baptist brethren do not perceive the church in the family. 
On their scheme, therefore, there is no distinct department, or phase 
of the church, for the guardianship of the earlier portion of our exis- 
tence. It is only when our children " believe," that God enters into 
covenant favor with them, and their infancy is unprovided for in the 
special economy of grace. We can truly say it is our happiness and, 
we think, our scriptural privilege to believe otherwise. While we 
dirTer from them, we would differ in love, and wish them the happi- 
ness of a like mind with ourselves. 

It will be remembered, as a previous declaration, that where there 
is no piety in the family, the form of the family church is all that 
remains. But where there is piety, there is the family- church, and 
there, and there only, is there a significance in the family-ordinance. 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 



63 



true God. A full illustration of this is furnished 
in the language held in the 82d Psalm : 

God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; 
He judgeth among the gods. 
How long will ye judge unjustly, 
And accept the persons of the wicked] Selah! 
Defend the poor and fatherless: 
Do justice to the afflicted and needy. 
Deliver the poor and needy: 
Rid them out of the hand of the wicked. 

They know not, neither will they understand; 
They walk on in darkness: 

All the foundations of the earth are out of course. 

1 have said, Ye are gods; 

And all of you are children of the Most High. 

But ye shall die like men, 

And fall like one of the princes. 

Arise, O God! judge the earth: 
For thou shalt inherit all nations. 

In this Psalm, the princes of Israel are evident- 
ly addressed. In verse 7th, the expression, "ye 
shall fall like one of the princes," distinguishes 
between them and the princes of Gentile nations. 

It will be seen that, in the first and sixth verses, 
they are addressed as 6< gods." The object of the 
whole psalm is to admonish them of their official 
duties ; and its pertinence consists in the relation 
and official likeness which is assumed as existing 
between them and Him who is God over all. 



64 THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 

They are reminded of the presence of the all- 
seeing God in the midst of their assemblies ; that 
to him they are accountable ; that their adminis- 
tration is lawful only as it is in accordance with 
His will ; that while the "gods" judge others, He 
it is that "judgeth among the gods." 

The inspired writer then remonstrates against 
their injustice, and expostulates with them con- 
cerning their base perversions of their authority. 
He admonishes them, in the midst of their dignity, 
to remember that it is not theirs; that it is delega- 
ted for a little while; that though he calls them 
"gods/' they shall "die like men/' and fall like 
the princes of other nations. And he then rejoices 
in prospect of the time when the great King and 
God, in the person and office of the Messiah, dis- 
placing all these unfaithful servants, shall arise 
and assume the government of the earth himself. 

The infinite distance, both as to nature and of- 
fice, between these lesser ones and the great Je- 
hovah, is abundantly indicated by such like pass- 
ages as the following, "For the Lord is great, and 
greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all 
gods." 

We have thus appealed to the scriptures for our 
full defence, lest some should deem us guilty of 
impiety, while we speak (reverently) of men, in 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. bo 

many of the relations of this life, as bearing, offi- 
cially, the image of God. An abundance of simi- 
lar scripture language might be additionally ad- 
duced. But it is sufficient to ascertain, as has 
been already done, that mortals who -die like 
men'' may, with reverence and propriety, be spok- 
en of, in some stations, as representatives, or types, 
to their fellow men, of Sod.* 

But may we not, from the use of this scripture 
language, learn something of the divine constitu- 
tion of human society % God controls it by the 
establishment of numerous subordinate dependen- 
cies. B There is no power but of God: the pow- 
ers that be, are ordained of God. Whosoever, 
therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordi- 
nance of God." The ruler, if he answers the end 
for which he was constituted such, is, to the up- 
right, "the minister of God for good" and "a re- 
venger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. 5 ' 
In these, and the accompanying words of the Apos- 

* Ep. Home, in his commentary on this Psalm, says, ;i It is true, 
then, that magistrates are exalted above other men ; that they are 
dignified with a commission from above; appointed to be the vice- 
gerents of heaven upon earth ; and therefore called by the name of 
him in whose name they act." 

Those who have access to the Biblical Repository, Vol. XII., will 
find on p. 356, the commencement of an interesting article, entitled 
" Scriptural idea of angels," which treats of the application of the 
title "gods" to created beings, 

6* 



Ob THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 

tie, the ruler is represented as one appointed to 
" minister" and " execute" God's will. If he rules 
well, he subserves the end for which he was exal- 
ted ; if ill, let him remember the portentous words 
of the Psalmist, "God standeth in the congrega- 
tion of the mighty: he judgeth among the gods." 

Speaking, then, of society, existing in a state ac- 
cordant with God's righteous will, we cannot but 
perceive the appropriate sense in which those hold- 
ing stations of eminence and authority, are called 
"gods." As we behold Kings, and Princes, and 
Rulers of any description, we see that whatever 
power they have, is of God ; whatever station they 
hold, is that which God provided, and that to which 
he fitted and appointed them; whatever wisdom 
they have, is of God ; and whatever authority they 
possess is that which God establishes. So that 
they have imparted to them, each in their own 
sphere, some of the official attributes of Jehovah ; 
for power and authority, and dignity, and wis- 
dom — in fine, all that constitutes fitness for domin- 
ion belongs unto God alone. The creature can 
hold neither except as God chooses to exalt him, 
and fill the creature-emptiness from His own in- 
finite fullness. 

Thus, is God a King ? So may men be kings 
in lesser spheres ; kings by the appointment and 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 



67 



investiture of God ; responsible to him, from whom 
they derive their authority. Their station is mod- 
eled after His, and their fitness for it is of His 
fullness. 

Is he God, to be obeyed, and to be had in rev- 
erence? So may men, in lesser spheres, be "gods" 
to be obeyed and reverenced. But while holding 
such stations, they pervert them entirely when- 
ever they forget Him who appointed them ; or 
are unmindful of the humility which should clothe 
them; or their responsibility to the Supreme Do- 
minion ; or whenever they fail to render their ad- 
ministration tributary to the government of the 
King of kings, and the Lord of lords. And their 
character, also, should, in conformity with their 
station, be modeled after the character of Him 
whom they officially represent. They should bear 
his moral image. 

But, of all the stations in which men hold an 
eminence over their fellows, there is none more 
evidently of divine appointment, none more un- 
changing in its nature, and perpetual in its sanc- 
tion, than that of the Father, or of the united pa- 
rents at the head of their household. Here, do- 
minion is less restricted, and consequently more 
absolute than any where else. And if, in any of 
the relations of life, it is lawful to contemplate man 



68 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 



as an intended type of God, surely the father of 
a family is, to his own household, a type of the 
Father of all. And, on the same principle (only 
with a stronger propriety,) that princes and rulers 
of nations are called "gods," may the father be 
styled the god of his household ; for there he is 
made such by the investiture of supreme authori- 
ty ; by being the model, to the eyes of his little 
ones, of perfection. They know no one above 
him ; they love no one before him. 

It is the most important of the social relations, 
because it lies nearer the foundation of human so- 
ciety. It is the only relation of which mention is 
made in the fifth commandment, w T hich is rightly 
interpreted by the Westminster Assembly of Di- 
vines, to inculcate the principle of obedience and 
reverence towards all the " powers that be." It 
is, as recognised in that commandment, the perpe- 
tual relation — it contains the germ of all govern- 
ment ; " honor" is there inculcated as the root of 
all subsequent obedience to God or man. 

Nations may perish, and the crowns of kings 
may fall : kingdoms may be dissolved, and be re- 
combined. But the family relation is unchanging 
where there is aught of the light or influence of 
Christianity. These foundations of society stand 
fast, and the influence that is prevalent here, is 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 



69 



that which kings and nations cannot alter. So po- 
tent is it, when in any good degree uniform, that 
to its supremacy, every human government must 
be accommodated, and monarchs, even, must pay 
a deference. 

At the head of this institution, stands the father, 
the governor of his little household, invested with 
power, dignity and importance, possessed in no 
other earthly station. He is the first type of su- 
preme excellence and authority which his children 
see. He is, in point of order, the first of that se- 
ries of types which the constitution of human so- 
ciety presents : and which, in the persons of princes 
and rulers, and pre-eminently in Christ, the all- 
glorious head of the church, stand out as brighter, 
and still brighter beacons, safely to conduct the 
spirit in all its pathway, from the cradle to the 
grave ; from infancy to heaven ! 

Alas, how have we fallen ! Who possesses this 
image of God ! W e may accommodate the la- 
mentation of the weeping prophet, " How is the 
gold become dim ; how is the most fine gold 
changed !***.* The precious sons of 
Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they es- 
teemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands 
of the potter!" Yea: and, as we pass from con- 
templating the destruction of the rightful parental 



?0 THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 

image, to the beholding of that parental neglect, 
which is so cruel and so universal, we may re- 
sume the strain of the prophet ; " Even the sea 
monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to 
their young ones : the daughter of my people is 
become cruel like the ostriches in the wilderness.* 
The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the 
roof of his mouth for thirst ; the young children 
ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them. 55 
And were it not for the glorious light of the Sun 
of Righteousness that the grace of God has bidden 
to arise, and that shines through the cross, and the 
word, and the church ; our lamentations might be 
bitter indeed. But its rays have power to restore 
the lost image, and relume parents, and princes, 
and rulers with some good measure of heavenly 
light, that they may yet show forth the glory of 
God and conduct dependent spirits to the future 
realms of eternal joy. 

It must he obvious, in this view of the constitu- 
tion of the family, that the station of parents is in. 
vested with solemn responsibilities. They are the 
first objects of supreme affection. Their own 
character will, with almost unvarying certainty 
make its corresponding impress on their children* 

* The ostrich has no natural affection. It lays its egg, buries it in 
the sand, and abandons it to be hatched by the heat of the sun. 



THE FAMILY CONSTITUTION. 71 

And ? if they stand as intended types of God, how 
important that they bear his image — that they 
harmonize with his government, and that they 
seek to live, and to rule, in the fear of the Lord. 

And no less obvious is the criminality of filial 
disobedience. It is the germ of all unrighteous- 
ness — the first budding of sin, 



CHAPTER V. 



THE CHIEF MATTER OF PARENTAL 
SOLICITUDE. 

The parental relation being such as has been 
exhibited, there must arise, in the minds of pious 
and reflecting parents, many questions of exceed- 
ing interest. Indeed a serious contemplation of 
their households, as strictly religious institutions, 
and of themselves, as intended types of God—as 
having received their commission from Him, and 
as rightfully governing only for Him— cannot but 
arouse, to the most diligent inquiry and action, the 
soul of every parent who has aught of spiritual dis- 
cernment, or spiritual sensibility. 

The first question occurring is, what is to be 
the great end of parental solicitude and effort — 
what, the great matter that should press parental 
hearts, as they first look upon the breathing minia- 
tures of themselves ? Allow me, in thought, to stand 
7 



74 TEE CHIEF EIATTEE 

beside you. during the first calm moment in which 
you are permitted to look upon your new-born in- 
fant. We see it sweetly sleeping : nobler in its 
nature than the young of any other earthly race, 
and still the most dependent! The birds soon 
stretch their wings and procure their own subsist- 
ence : the iambs in a few hours, commence their 
gambols : but the infant, how helpless! 

And why is it. that the nobler being is the most 
dependent, but that its education is the most im- 
portant ; and that this dependence may bind, and 
endearingly commend it to those whom God has 
constituted its earthly guardians I 

But for what are you to educate this child ? 
Will you selfishly receive it. as a mere object on 
which' you may lavish your fondness ? Will you 
forget, at this interesting moment, that this feeble 
infant can never die: and that the formation-period 
of its eternal existence is thrown under your con- 
trol 1 "Will you be so intent upon your pleasure in 
Iwmgi as to forget your duty in educating it? 
This little breathing infant is speedily to be a se- 
raph, or a ruined spirit. Hear, then, the wise 
man, "Train up a child in the way he should go, 
and when he is old he will not depart from it:" 
and the apostle, also, "Bring them up in the nur- 
ture and admonition of the Lord.'' 



OF PARENTAL SOLICITUDE. 75 

And does not your heart respond, Amen? For 
what other end would you train it ? Look around 
you, christian parent and answer. 

Would you make bodily health the first object 
of search for your child? That way may be 
hedged up. Perhaps the seeds of disease were 
born with it ; or some casualty may befall it to 
maim it for life, and entail upon it crippled ener- 
gies, and circumscribed enjoyment. You may be 
foiled in every effort. 

Would you seek for it distinction in this world ? 
That is of dubious attainment. The promise af- 
forded by its natural talents may not be so great 
in the eyes of others as in yours ; and then Fame 
is very capricious in the bestowal of her favors. 
Many similar aspirants will be found, who will 
seek to blast your hopes, that they may secure the 
gratification of their own. There may be insur- 
mountable obstacles in this path. 

But there is one way which is unobstructed; 
one path which is open to all — the pathway to the 
grave — -to that mighty sepulchre which entombs all 
human greatness, and levels all human distinctions. 
Earth bears her sons, for a little season, upon her 
surface, and permits them to sport in the light of 
heaven, and create their temporary distinctions, 
and revel in a world of illusive thought ; and then 



/D THE CHIEF MATTER 

gathers them all again to her mother-bosom, where 
the dust of the lofty and the lowly mingle, in silent 
fellowship. There the cripple, and the man of per- 
fect stature— the sickly, and the strong— the hon- 
ored, and the despised— the rich, and the poor— 
the noble, and the vulgar are alike ! They all bow- 
down, and pass under the iron rod of death— they 
lie in the grave, and are commuted to kindred 
dust! There, in this vast dwelling place, is no 
more greatness, no more contempt— no more 
wealth, no more poverty— no more sickness, no 
more health. Like the deeper and lighter co- 
lors of the rainbow, when the sun-light falls 
upon the cloud, so are all these varieties of hu- 
man condition, while the animated dust stands 
up and moves in the light of heaven. When men 
return whence they came, and fall back to the cells 
of the earth, which the light of the Sun never illu- 
mines, then, the colors of human condition are lost 
in the darkness of death. 

It is in this way, and to this end of all tem- 
poral things that your child must go ; for so far 
the path of existence is common. At this point, 
two paths diverge. While the body crumbles 
into dust, the spirit ventures on. It descends to 
a deeper, an eternal, a living death ; or it as- 
cends to live forever with its Heavenly Fa- 



OF PARENTAL SOLICITUDE. i i 

ther — to be welcomed to a world of glory, and to 
be received, as a loved child, into the family of the 
redeemed. 

While, then, the way of health, and honor, and 
munificent possessions, and every other earthly 
way is uncertain, there is one. christian parent, 
which is both desirable and practicable — a way 
which, though Satan once closed it, a stronger 
than Satan has opened — opened wide — opened 
free — opened for yourself and your household. 
Have you not heard the voice of wisdom, saying, 
as she has stood and pointed to the path of virtue 
and of heaven. This is the way, walk ye in it ? 
For what else has your family been thus consti- 
tuted, and have you been placed at its head to 
hold the child's affections, and sway over it an un- 
bounded influence, but that you may guide it home 
to God ? And can you hesitate, as to the end for 
which to educate your little one ? Can your 
thoughts ever go forward into its future history, 
without earnest and ruling desires that it be found 
in the ways of godliness I Can you allow any 
anxiety to transcend this, that it he a child of God 
and an heir of heaven ? 

Alas! there is much care for the body, but how 
little parental anxiety for the soul ! There may 
be much doting affection ; there may be many 



78 THE CHIEF MATTER 

hours of weary toil and solicitude for the temporal 
comfort of children : and still there may exist most 
appalling neglect. The soul may be left to pe- 
rish ! We are smitten with horror when we hear 
of the mother who has cast her infant children into 
the Ganges, or buried them, while yet living, be- 
neath the cold earth. But may not eternity de- 
velope greater enormities enacted in christian 
lands ? 

Imagine the heathen mother, after she has taken 
thus the lives of all her infant offspring, to have 
heard of Christ — to have believed on him — to have 
wept over her cruelty and sin, and finally to have 
gone to be with Jesus. Her weepings are ended. 
The children, whose untimely and cruel death at 
her own hands she had been lamenting, she now 
meets, washed in the blood of the Lamb; and greet- 
ing her advent with seraph voices. Her cruelty 
was to the tody ; God over-ruled it for eternal 
good.* 

Next comes the parent, from the bosom of a 
christian community — a parent who, though a per- 
sonal believer, has neglected parental oversight 

On the subject of infants, the Scriptures are very silent. The 
assumption on which this paragraph is based, is not, as far as the au- 
thor knows, explicitly sanctioned by them : though there is much 
which invests it with a high degree of probability. It is blessed to 
know that the Judge of all the earth will do right. 



OF PARENTAL SOLICITUDE. 79 

and prayer. He looks among the happy throng 
for the son or daughter who, in the full vigor 
and maturity of life, found an unexpected grave. 
But there is no child to greet him. And then, 
were it not strangely impossible that heavenly 
happiness should be alloyed, we might suppose the 
painful recollection of his own neglect to fill him 
with anguish. His cruelty was to the soul. We 
shall judge of crime, hereafter, differently from 
what we judge of it here. 

Does a parent read this, who has never made 
the salvation of his children the first, great object 
of anxiety and effort ? Have you never yet bow- 
ed the knee in fervent, agonizing prayer for the 
eternal welfare of your child, or children ? Un- 
natural parent ! how can you look upon your be- 
loved offspring, whose moral training and future 
destinies, God has committed to your keeping, and 
for whom you never pray ? Does not the very 
beholding of them reprove your neglect, and the 
injustice you are doing them ? How can it, right- 
fully, be otherwise than your morning, and even, 
ing, and even your night-watching prayer con- 
cerning them, that they be found at last among the 
ransomed of the Lord 1 We may quickly pass 
over all other petitions for our children's health, 
their temporal comfort, their life, that we may pour 



SO TEE CHIEF HATTER 

out our souls, from the first dawning of their exist- 
ence, until we can no longer pray, that they be 
saved from sin and from hell — that they be re- 
ceived into the presence of God to dwell with Him 
forever. Our desire should be, Lord, grant us this 
petition, we will leave the rest with thee. 

Mother, Father, — look upon your little child. • as 
parents are often called to do.) look upon it seized 
with violent sickness, and, in a moment, poising be- 
tween time and eternity; its spirit, perhaps, in a 
few hours, to pass beyond the influence of prayer. 
And can you not then pray ? So, ever feel — so. 
ever pray : for at any moment it may be taken, 
though the bloom of health is upon its cheek, and 
the activity of youth is in its limbs. 

Your little child — how dependent! how fondly 
it clings to your bosom ! You will rise up. with 
a giant's strength, to defend it from a foe that 
seeks its life ; and will you not strive, with an an- 
gel's strength, for the life of its soul ! 

An anecdote, in substance as follows, illustra- 
ting the awfulness of parental neglect, lately ap- 
peared in one of our religious periodicals.* There 
was once in London a loving family, the parents 
of which were professing christians. Titer were 

* New-York Observer for 1839. 



OF PARENTAL SOLICITUDE. 



SI 



expecting, end anxiously awaiting the arrival, by 
water, of a cherished son. The vessel that bore 
him was wrecked, and the son perished. A sur- 
viving mate carried them the intelligence. They 
beset him, with parental tenderness, to know all the 
particulars ; especially inquiring what he thought, 
of eternity, and what were his last words. You 
may conceive with what interest they listened for 
the reply, and held back their sobs and tears that 
they might hear. The faithful mate .replied, that 
during five hours of suspense, before he was clashed 
upon the rocks, all he exclaimed was, " 0 cruel 
parents, you have brought me up for the present 
life, but said nothing to me about eternity." 

Who can stay the reflection, that perhaps it is 
well for many professing christian parents, that 
the reproaches that are uttered in Hell, are not 
heard on earth ! 

As there can be but one sentiment concerning 
the way in which children should be trained ; so 
there should be but one effort — one aim. It should 
be that, to which every household arrangement 
and influence is made tributary ; viz, to commend 
God to our children, and our children to God. 
Let this be, through every changing circumstance 
and season, from first to last, the great, the daily, 
the hourly aim of every parent. Then, in that 



82 THE CHIEF MATTER OF, &C. 

household, God is honored ; around it, His favor 
encamps ; the end of the family is answered ; and 
parents and children are distinguished by the spirit- 
ual blessings of God. 

It is only when this end, in the training of chil- 
dren, is sought, that the family — the lesser reli- 
gious institution — is made to harmonize with the 
church, and with heaven. God created us for His 
own glory ; and none of the institutions which he 
has established, are rightly administered, by those 
to whom he has intrusted their care, except, as 
this ultimate end is kept in view, and faithfully 
subserved, by every lesser arrangement. If heav- 
en is the model of a christian family, then the great 
end that God proposes there, should be the great 
end which the parent proposes here. 



CHAPTER VL 



HABITS OF CHILDHOOD, 

Having thus exhibited the great design and 
adaptation of the family institution, and the great 
end which the parentis constantly and prayerfully 
to propose, it comes next in order, to inquire into 
the Habits of Childhood which should be culti- 
vated within this hallowed sphere. 

And here, it is easy to indulge in an endless de- 
tail ; to enumerate the many feelings which chil- 
dren should be taught to cherish ; the many in- 
strumentalities which should be used in their right 
training ; and the many errors that should be 
avoided. But, passing by these things, it is pro- 
posed, rather, to fasten the attention of the reader 
upon one or two characteristics, of leading impor- 
tance. 

The first great habit which should be implanted 
in our fallen nature is Obedience, From beinsr. 



°4 HABITS OF CHILDHOOD. 

by nature, rebellious, we must become obedient. 
From loving our own ways, we must turn to pre- 
fer God's ways, and to be subservient to His great 
and important ends. God is the great Controller 
of all tilings— our Creator— the One who orders 
all things, superintends all things, and allots us a 
portion of His own work to accomplish— a portion, 
for which, and for which alone. He created us. 
Our wisdom is finite and dependent, and should be 
controlled by that which is infinite and creative : 
and our energies are all adapted to subserve the 
end, for which He fashioned them. God never 
made man to stand in any other relation to Himself, 
than that of entire subservience and dependence. 

He is bom dependent, and, child-like, leans upon 
the wisdom of his parents, and is safe only as he 
heeds their counsels. There is no more striking 
picture of dependence, than that which is presented 
in a new-born infant, as it lies helpless on its mo- 
ther's bosom. It is this constitutional, inwrought 
dependence, that man can never outgrow. For 
when the infant grows to manhood, submission is 
still required " to the powers that be." Men must 
be governed as well as children ; they must sub- 
mit to the established rulers, in whom, superior wis- 
dom is supposed to exist. Thus, all along, are we 
taught, in infancy, and in manhood, that there is 



HABITS OF CHILDHOOD. 85 

that above us, to which we must yield obedience. 
We can never surmount this truth. The strong- 
est man—the highest angel, is as dependent as 
the infant of an hour. I do not mean merely that 
his dependence is as real, but that it is as entire ; 
that in, and of, and by himself, he has no more 
power, no more wisdom. As the infant is depen- 
dent upon its parents, so are we upon God. And 
it were no less palpable and monstrous Mly for the 
nursing child, were it endowed with the ability, to 
extinguish the instinct which directs it to its mo- 
ther, than it is for us to refuse obedience to the 
great and upholding Creator. 

If creatures are thus dependent, they must be 
obedient ; for obedience is the first obligation of 
dependence. And here is the difference between 
sin and holiness ; the one is conformity to the will 
of God— Obedience ; and the other is non-con- 
formity to, or neglect of His will— Disobedience ; 
the one insures happiness, and the other insures 
misery. These two dispositions make, in short, 
the difference between heaven and hell. In hea- 
ven, God is sought, and God is obeyed ; in hell, 
God is avoided, and God is repudiated : in heaven, 
the creature leans upon the Creator ; in hell, the 
creature has divorced itself, measurably, from 
8 



HABITS OF CHILDHOOD, 



God, and has become wedded to helplessness and 
misery. 

The pious parent can have no hesitation in ex. 
ercising a preference, unspeakably strong, that his 
children be accepted of God, and received into the 
number of the saints and angels ; neither can he 
fail to see the surpassing importance of cultivating, 
in them, habits of constant subservience and obe- 
dience. Every act of this life, every habit here 
formed, tends to confirm us in obedience, or dis- 
obedience — to ripen us for heaven, or hell. 

A disposition to obedience leads to an inquiry 
into the will of him whom we would obey. The 
obedient child will watch and anticipate, if possi- 
ble, the wishes of its parent. So he who obeys 
God, will delight to study the law of God that 
searches the heart, and lays its broad, and univer- 
sal claim upon the inner and outer man ; and, 
searching, he will obey. So that you see, at once, 
that where the disposition of obedience is incorpo- 
rated into the character, and God is set before the 
mind, as the great and rightful law-giver, the foun- 
dation of a godly character is laid deep and broad. 
"Fear God, and keep his commandments: for 
this is the whole duty of man." 

But there is one other characteristic that should 
be developed, side by side with this, in the unfold- 



HA. HITS OF CHILDHOOD. 



ing dispositions of the child— Love. By this is 
comprehensively signified all those cheerful emo- 
tions of the heart which accompany the outward 
act, and which give the only acceptable savour to 
human conduct. All true reverence, and regard 
for authority, have their basis here. 

To the minds of some it may seem that the re- 
presentations made above, of the duty of creature 
obedience, savour too much of austerity. But it is 
not maintained that we are created to yield a ser- 
vile obedience. Servitude is a term, and an idea, 
that sin has introduced. It is the hand-maid of 
Disobedience ; and was never known in Eden, or 
in Heaven. The Gospel seeks to dispel the un- 
welcome thing, and proclaim its own glorious " lib- 
erty." In seeking to reinstate us into a likeness 
to things heavenly, it promises to deliver us from 
"the bondage of corruption into the glorious liber- 
ty of the children of God." Angels do not bow 
as menials, and crouch under the rod of authori- 
ty — they are not "eye-servants as men-pleasers," 
but they serve God with the heart. It has been 
well said, 

"But God abhors the sacrifice. 
Where not the heart is found." 

A servile obedience is not that which satisfies 
God, or answers the end for which He created us. 



HABITS OF CHILDHOOD. 

He gave us affections— He styles himself our Fa- 
ther, and He would have our love. Hence the 
first commandment is given, claiming for God the 
first place in our affections ; whereby we under- 
stand that every offering made to Him, in order to 
be acceptable, must be the cheerful offering of 
love. "Every man, according as he purposeth in 
his heart, so let him give ; not grudgingly, or of 
necessity : for God loveth a cheerful giver." 

Without the savour of love diffused through the 
soul, no man has the disposition of heaven, nor 
can enter there, though his obedience be after the 
strictest sect of the Pharisees. Though he pray 
at the corners of the streets, morning, noon and 
night ; though he sell all that he has and gives to 
the poor, yet, without charity, he is " as sounding 
brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 5 ' He obeys not, in 
that first particular which alone can render all 
subsequent obedience pleasing — namely, in giving 
his heart. Alas ! there is much constrained obe- 
dience — much heartless and conventional morality, 
on which men may count, but God wiil reject. 
The obedience He requires, is the obedience of 
love — the obedience that the tender wife owes to 
her husband — that the church owes to Christ, who 
has commended his love to us in that he died for 
us. 



HABITS OF CHILDHOOD. 



89 



In the christian character, then, as m the angel- 
ic, we are to find love and obedience, in unchang- 
ing alliance. David exclaimed, "Oh how love I 
thy law, it is my meditation all the day;" "I have 
inclined mine heart to perform thy statutes." 
While the command of Moses is, "Love the Lord 
your God and serve Him with all your heart, and 
all your soul," the same union of love with obe- 
dience is recognised in the declaration, "'This is 
the love of God, that we keep His command- 
ments." Paul said of all his signal obedience, 
"The love of Christ constraineth us:" "Ye have- 
not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, 
but the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba. 
Father." So that while fear of the penalty is the 
only motive operative on the mind of the disobe- 
dient, it is the love of the law and Lawgiver that 
elicits genuine and acceptable obedience. There- 
fore it is that we represent the obedience of love, 
comprehending, in itself, all things else, as the dis- 
position of heaven, and as the great feature which 
we should seek to develope in our characters, and 
the characters of our children. Then they are 
brought up in the way wherein they should go, 
and in the indulgence of those dispositions which 
will ripen them, with daily rapidity, for the com- 



3* 



yu HABITS OF CHILDHOOD. 

panionship of angels, and for the obedience of 
heaven. 

We may, in fact, consider the obedience of love 
as a single and peculiar characteristic, rather than 
as two distinct ones combined. For really there 
is no other obedience than that of love ; for gen- 
uine obedience implies love. That man is not a 
good citizen who obeys the laws from any other 
motive than his regard for them. The criminal 
is awed by the prison. And — to apply these prin- 
ciples to family training— it is evident that the 
child has a poor title to an obedient disposition, 
who yields only under stern authority, and with 
sullen looks. Obedience must be cheerful, in or- 
der to be complete. 

If this principle of affectionate obedience be but 
firmly established in the child, there is but one 
thing seemingly wanting, as far as parental in- 
strumentality is concerned, viz., that the parent's 
laws and character be holy and equitable. Then 
the family will afford a striking resemblance to 
that heavenly dominion which is its glorious pro- 
totype; the principles of heaven will be re-estab- 
lished upon earth, and our little ones will ad- 
vance into life under their strong protection, and 
their maturing influence. To establish these prin- 
ciples, and to cultivate, and confirm these habits of 



HABITS OF CHILDHOOD. 



91 



childhood, should be the aim of every parent who 
would seek the spirtual welfare of his children, 
and who would diligently avoid all causes of future 
reproach. 

True, this is but the beginning of education. 
As such, however, it is of the highest importance ; 
for the foundation must be wisely and firmly laid, 
if we would entertain any reasonable assurance of 
the excellence and stability of the superstructure. 
Let these habits of childhood fail to be ingrafted 
upon the growing spirit, and a neglect occurs, 
which can be but poorly repaired in after life — 
a dominion is given to corruption, with which, 
the grace of God, if hereafter imparted, will have 
its severest struggle. 



CHAPTER VIL 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 

Ix the previous chapters we have endeavored 
to exhibit the character, constitution, and design 
of the family ; together with the more prominent 
general principles which are adapted to its right- 
ful control. The way seems thus opened, more 
directly, to consider parental duties and responsi- 
bilities. 

Parents should be mindful of the object 
foe which they are deputed to hold their pe- 
CULIAR relation. This, though a matter of but 
little thought, should be a subject of daily ponder- 
ing and prayer. Why has the parent authority, 
but that he may require obedience? Why has he 
such power over the affections of his child, but 
that those affections be rightly trained 1 

But, parent, you have not this authority and 
control over your household, that you may exer- 



94 PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 

cise your own capricious will. That will is finite, 
and is ever to act in subservience to that which is 
infinite. You are appointed to your station, that 
}^ou may rule for God, and administer his laws — 
not your own. Your power over these infant 
spirits is not yours, that you may seek the ad- 
vancement of your own interests; for God has 
created and ordered all things for himself. Nei- 
ther is it the object of your deputed relation, that 
you should use the power which God has given 
you over the affections of your children, to con- 
centrate those affections, exclusively, or chiefly, 
on yourself. While the temptation may be strong 
to yield yourself, solely, to the personal delights 
of these tender, social relations, remember the 
command which you are, first of all, to enforce 
on the growing understanding of your child, is, 
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" and 
the Spirit whispers to those who are yet in the 
filial relation, "Remember now thy Creator in 
the days of thy youth." 

God is glorified in having obedience, in its 
highest sense, rendered unto him alone ; and he 
has not placed you in your family? that, by mak- 
ing your own will its law, you may share his glo- 
ry, of which, he has solemnly declared, "My glo- 
ry I will not give to another." And, O man, who 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 95 

art thou, that wouldst stand between an immortal 
soul and its God— that wouldst seek, when its af- 
fections should be shooting upward, to intercept 
them, by the interposition of yourself ? Or, who 
art thou that wouldst shut, and barricade the laws 
of God from thy household, and govern it accord- 
ing to the caprice of a corrupt and changeable 
will! Who art thou that wouldst render the physi- 
cal, and mental, and moral energies of thine house- 
hold, tributary only to thine own ends — to the in- 
crease of thy fame, or thy wealth, or the care and 
comfort of thy declining years 1 

How many parents are guilty of these things ? 
Flow many receive, and seek, by all the arts of 
parental fondness, to fasten the affections of chil- 
dren to themselves, and stay them there ! How 
many? The answer is plain: as many as never 
speak to their children of God— as many as neg- 
lect to direct their affections to the Eternal Fa- 
ther. And how many seem to think that the en- 
ergies of their children are to be spent for the 
common benefit of this earthly family ! As many 
as forget to teach their children that they are the 
Lord's — that the first, great object of existence is 
to serve Him with diligence and fidelity. The 
farmer is guilty of this who sends forth his children 
to the toil and the labor of the field, that his barns 



96 PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 

and store-houses may be filled, while he neglects 
daily to teach them that they are to live only 
for God. The merchant is guilty of this, who 
imparts to his children, by his chief and perhaps 
only endeavours, the training of the counting 
house, that he may station one here and another 
there, that they may aid him in his fond pursuit of 
wealth. Such parents take the affections and en- 
ergies to themselves which they are bound to train 
for God. They rob God ; by making themselves 
proprietors instead of stewards of their children. 

But, parent, this is not the object for which 
God gave you your station— that you might re- 
ceive tribute for him, and then appropriate it to 
yourself. He did not place you there to share 
His glory ; and what is this you are doing ! You 
are making yourself the god and idol of your 
household. You stand not as the priest of your 
family, to dedicate yourself and them to the 'ser- 
vice of the Most High! No ; exalted to this sta- 
tion, you sacrilegiously take that which belongs 
unto God ! Remember, " God standeth in the con- 
gregationof the mighty ; He judgeth among the 
gods." The day of your account is at hand. "I 
have said ye are gods, but ye must die like men." 
Forget not Herod, who received the adoration of 
the people, and gave not God the glory. God 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES* 97 

never established the parental relation that it 
should detract from obedience and devotedness to 
himself. 

Neither has God deputed you to hold this rela- 
tion to the detriment of your children. If you 
care not for God. we would beseech you to think 
enough of your official relation to care for your 
little ones. If you have love for them, how can 
you hold your peace, when their affections rise no 
higher than yourself, and the things of this world ; 
when you know that you must soon part from 
them to lie in the grave, and the things of this 
world will perish in the using ? God never placed 
you, as a parent, to stand, yourself or to thrust 
other things, between your children and heaven. 
Satan has thrown obstacles enough. 

For what, then, does Jehovah set you as the pa- 
rent of your family? Is it not, as has been already 
shown, that you may be, in that precious sphere, 
a type of Himself ? Is it not that, in your charac- 
ter and administration, His own attributes may be 
illustrated, being reduced to the comprehension 
of infant spirits ; so that, before the feeble vision 
can look upon the sun, it may behold the lesser 
star? Is it not that it may see in you. purity — 
that it may be governed and trained by you, 

wisely; and be taught to look beyond yourself, to 
9 



98 PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 



Him who is the God and Father of all? Yes ; it is 
for this — that its infant affections may be deve- 
loped under the influence of models adapted to its 
capacities. God has made you, and all that rise 
above you in society, to be but as lesser and 
greater models of Himself — as stepping-stones of 
the affections and energies to Himself. And will 
you rob God of his due, and lead your children 
down to everlasting death? 

You apprehend, then, the object, for which God 
deputed you to stand as a lesser god to your own 
household. It is, that the affections and energies, 
being, in order of nature, first won to yourself, 
might rise in gradation from the smaller, to the 
greater ; from the less, to the more glorious ob- 
jects — till, by the spirit's passage though the dis- 
ciplinary and expanding process of this mortal 
course it should rise, to have all the relations of 
this life blended in those of that eternal world, 
whence they were borrowed, and to which they 
should ever be tributary. 

This is the system, of which human society is a 
part; and while every lesser god, from the parent 
to the king, leads expanding spirits upwards to 
the God of gods, all is harmonious— all is joyful. 
But when they each forget God, and seek their 
own — when parents, and rulers, and princes, and 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 99 



kings, wander from their proper relations and per- 
vert their office — when, instead of being lights set 
along to guide the infant spirit in its pathway from 
the cradle to the grave, they become decoys to 
destruction, and are lighted from hell instead of 
heaven ; then the little spirit looks forth upon 
life helpless and alone : between itself and its God* 
there is a wide and dreary wilderness, in the mazes 
of which it lives to grope, and be lost forever. 
Then it is, as the Psalmist says, "The foundations 
of the earth are out of course 5 '— the whole har- 
mony of God's arrangement is destroyed, and 
merged in awful confusion. 

Such was the consequence of sin in our world. 
Such it would still be, unalleviated in its effects? 
had it not been for the gracious Son of God. He 
has opened a path through the wilderness, which 
He has sprinkled and marked with His blood. He 
is reinstating the foundations of the earth that be- 
came out of course ; He is sanctifying parents and 
re-lighting these heavenly beacons, by the kin- 
dlings of His grace ; and the promise is yet to be 
surely fulfilled when kings shall become nursing 
fathers and queens nursing mothers to spirits that 
seek the way to heaven. 

Forget not, then, christian parents, the object 
for which you are constituted the temporary guar- 



100 PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 

dians and gods of your households,— the end, next 
to your own salvation, for which you have been illu- 
mined by the grace of Christ; viz., that you may 
be lights to your households, and the conductors 
of their affections and obedience to Him who is 
the rightful God and Sovereign of every creature. 

And let this end, not only be clearly apprehen- 
ded, but LET ITS IMPORTANCE BE DEEPLY FELT. 

There are two matters which should draw upon 
your daily thoughts and anxieties more than any 
others— more than your business, or pleasures- 
more than your gain, or your loss,— and those are, 
the salvation of your own souls, and the salvation 
of your children ; of those immortal spirits who 
derive from you their first impressions, and receive 
from you their earliest guidance. They are com- 
mitted to your keeping ; their eternal existence is 
commenced under your tutelage ; and the ideas 
they receive — the dispositions they exercise — the 
principles of action they adopt, are wonderfully 
under your control. Too much cannot be said 
of the strength of early habits. When their 
power is considered, and the important relation 
which every infant developement bears to the fu- 
ture character, how is it that the first exhibitions 
of depravity can be noticed with such prevalent 
levity and unconcern ! 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 101 

Does the cunning of your child begin to be seen, 
in its artful concealment ? Does its spirit of self 
justification appear in its ingenious apologies? 
And perhaps you have turned away your face and 
smiled ! And you have told it to your neighbor ! 
But what .'—would you smile at the symptoms of 
madness or idiocy in your child? Would they not 
fill you with anguish ? But have you yet to learn 
that neither of these calamities is so alarming as 
the inherence of depravity? When you behold 
the first manifestation of its sure indwelling, it 
should fill you with sorrow, and drive you to 
prayer, There is no calamity like this ! There 
is no disease like this which fastens on the soul, 
and corrupts for ever, without consuming ! 

Be careful to administer the government 
of your households on the sabie principles 
which God adopts, and in the exercise of the 
same spirit which God manifests in the go- 
vernment of His creatures. The propriety of 
this direction is manifest, from what has been 
said, in previous pages, concerning the nature and 
constitution of the family, as a religious institution ; 
harmonizing, in its design and adaptation, with the 
government of an holy God. As the gods of 
your households, and as types, there, of Him who 

is supreme, you are to govern, as Jehovah go- 
9* 



102 PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 

verns. Your administration is to harmonize with 
His. It should be your aim to cultivate, in those 
subject to your influence, the exercise of those 
very dispositions toward yourself, which you would 
have them extend, in riper years, to God. In 
other words, little children are to be trained- 
while their ideas are, as yet, cheifly confined to 
the family— in the exercise of those dispositions 
and habits toward their parents, which, for their 
future happiness and perfection, it is necessary that 
they exercise toward their Heavenly Father. It 
is manifest, that if these dispositions and habits to 
the earthly parent are inwrought in early life, 
there is nothing else needed, to secure the great 
end which every pious parent anxiously desires, 
but to have them transferred— or rather extended, 
in their higher and supreme developement, to God. 

The inquiry now recurs, what are the disposi- 
tions toward God, which fit us for His presence, 
and secure to us His favor? In the chapter on 
the habits of childhood, it was shown that the 
great disposition of holy, and regenerated creatures 
is a disposition to affectionate and cheerful obedi- 
ence. God must be loved and obeyed ; so that 
every creature who would be happy in His domin- 
ion must ever yield the cheerful obedience of love. 
This, then, is the disposition which you must seek 
to develope and confirm from earliest infancy. 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 103 

If, therefore, you would tit your children for 
heaven — governing them, in the earthly, as they 
must hereafter be governed in the heavenly fam- 
ily — you must alicays require obedience to your 
commands. 

This is of the first importance— of the first im- 
portance in early life', And when I see, on every 
side, the woful neglect, in this very particular, 
which prevails in families where better things 
should be expected — Oh, that this printed page 
might speak! — that the earnestness of its tones 
might give emphasis to its words! But alas! — it 
is silent : and God, alone, can give it energy ! 
Reader, may I ask you to think, and to ponder 
again and again, upon the unspeakable importance 
of this first rudiment of a right education! 

Let the disposition of the immortal spirit be un- 
ruly—let its will rise and live supreme ; and you 
educed: it for collision icith Jehovah! Every in- 
stance of insubordination, strengthens that habit 
which unfits the soul lor subjection to the laws of 
God. With disobedience, or with the least ap- 
proximation to it, the parent should never com- 
promise. Such tendencies must be overruled; 
and the child be made to feel, in its earliest, what 
it must know, in all irs future existence, — that there 
are wills superior to its own, to winch it must bow 



104 PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 

in cheerful subjection. The parent, by securing, 
in early infancy, this subjection to himself, is train- 
ing the child in the way it should go, and is thus 
fulfilling the ordinance of Jehovah. 

O, I have often wondered, yea, and sometimes 
shuddered, when I have seen the parent pass over 
the transgressions of his child— when I have heard 
the voice of parental authority answered only by 
a murmuring refusal. It matters not how trivial 
a requisition is, if it is but wise and reasonable— 
and such, it should always be ; for, in this re- 
spect, you should govern as God governs, who 
never regards the least law as unimportant— 
when it is once reasonably made, it should never- 
yield before the reluctance of the child. 

I truly look upon that parent— and how many 
such?— who passes unnoticed the disobedience of 
a child— as I would look upon a heathen mother, 
while instructing her offspring in the principles and 
practices of some soul destroying religion; for 
every act of disobedience comprises the very es- 
sence ofsin^ and is a new step in the road to death. 
Wo to that parent who beholds his child disobe- 
dient, and neglects to intervene and enforce his au- 
thority. Such authority may be exercised mildly 
and kindly, while it is maintained firmly and con- 
stantly. 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 105 

The child should never know the time when it is 
not to obey immediately and cheerfully. The be- 
ginnings of evil are small, and the first manifest- 
ations of disobedience can be controlled. Thus, 
if you will prevent the habit, it is well ; but if you 
allow the child to disregard your laws, you are 
recreant to God, who has given it to you to train 
up for Him— you are recreant to your own off- 
spring, whom you are allowing to advance, un- 
restrained, to eternal ruin. O that parents would 
ever have before them the legitimate, awful end 
of filial disobedience, and they could not look 
upon the slighest symptoms of this hell-disease, 
without alarm and pain! 

It is impossible, either for language? or for hu- 
man conceptions, to magnify the evil of early dis- 
obedience. Imagination, even, cannot paint its 
danger in too high colors. And could a majority 
of professing christian parents but witness their 
own neglects in this very particular, together with 
their true bearings, it would fill them, I doubt not, 
with amazement, and cause them to cry out, wo 
is me. If your children do not obey the earthly 
parent whom they see, how can you expect them 
to obey that Heavenly Father whom they see not? 
If they do not yield to you, even an outward sub- 
jection, how can you expect them to obey that God 



106 PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 

whose law searches the heart and tries the reins of 
the children of men. An habitually disobedient 
child presents awfully alarming symptoms of con- 
firmed depravity, and ripening ruin. If he dis- 
obeys you in a little thing, he will disobey in a 
greater ; thus advancing till he despises all those 
laws of God that control the inner, if not those that 
control the outer man. 

As to the season of requiring obedience, it is 
sufficient to say that it is none too early to apply 
God's rules, when the child is old enough to obey 
the devil's ; or, in other words, it is foil time to 
make a child obey, when it evidently knows enough 
to disobey. 

Parents, be adjured, then, in the name of your 
children and of God — -both of whom your re- 
sponsibilities concern—be adjured, as you would 
avoid unfaithfulness to the latter, and cruelty to 
the former, to establish and maintain parental au- 
thority. Let it be even and mild— let it be con- 
stant and uncompromising, and then you will have 
fulfilled, in your sphere, this department of your 
duty, and you can leave the rest with God; 
the child will pass from under your tutelage, into 
the more extended spheres of its existence, with 
that pliant will, and with those habits of subordi- 
nation, which afford the best promise of ingrafted 
piety. 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 107 

It is only as you thus systematically, diligent- 
ly, and firmly require filial subjection to parental 
authority, that you establish, rightly, the first 
principle of your household administration. It is 
then, only, that you follow that heavenly model, 
after which your family is constituted, and, in the 
midst of which, the mild and holy will of our 
Great Father is cheerfully supreme. 

But there is still other authority than that 
which you exercise, to which the infant child is to 
be taught subjection, that its character for obe- 
dience may be complete. The child has another, 
and a still nearer monitor than the parent : that 
monitor is conscience. Its voice speaks within, 
and whispers its accents to the little spirit, ere it 
can understand the language of the lips. God 
has planted it there, that the parent may find it 
an auxiliary to his authority, if discreetly exer- 
cised ; and that the child may not be without some 
guide, in case of parental neglect. 

Let this conscience be often appealed to, by the 
looks and the tones of the parent, long ere the 
child can fully comprehend mature r language; 
for it is, when rightly developed, the sure voice of 
God, speaking in the soul, It is thus, and thus 
only, that you cultivate, in the child, a true and 
correct sense of personal responsibility, and ac- 



103 PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 

countability to something higher than itself. Let 
all your own commands be simple, wise, and rea- 
sonable* that thus your authority, and that of con- 
science, being coincident, may strengthen each 
other. 

Herein consists the tremendous, omnipotent au- 
thority of God's holy and righteous law — that 
it coincides with the enlightened conscience. Here- 
in is its power to grind the poor transgressor, on 
the one hand: and on the other*, to impart, to the 
conscientious and obedient, joy unspeakable, and 
full of glory. 

If, then, as a lesser god, you would rule, in 
your dominion, as the great God rules in His, 
seek to develops the consciences of your children, 
and strengthen their authority. Teach them to 
olserve that obedience stands connected with in- 
ward peace— that when they are bad, they are 
unhappy, and when they are good, they are hap- 
py. It is well, in all our corrections and dealings; 
to associate these two ideas strongly, and make 
our children feel that the prominent object of our 
discipline is, to make them happu—t 0 drive away 
that evil spirit which has thrown its sullen drapery 
over them, and beclouded the wonted sunshine of 
their brows. The most glorious display of Na- 
ture is, when, after a summer's shower, she pre- 



PARENTAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES. 109 

sents herself, arrayed in the robes of the sun, and 
stands smiling through her tears. And! ^'ke it, 
only of more thrilling interest, is the scene f the 
nursery, when the conquered child throws its arms 
of artless love around the parents neck, and ex- 
claims. "Mother, I am so happy noiv!" 

That child learns, that obedience to parental au- 
thority, and to the dictates of its own conscience, 
constitutes its highest happiness. 



10 



) 



CHAPTER VIIL 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

A general view has been taken, in the prece- 
ding chapter, of parental duties and responsibilities. 
The parent has been urged to be mindful of the 
object for which he is appointed to his station— of 
the high importance of that object— and the duty 
incumbent on him to administer his lesser govern- 
ment, upon those principles which he finds preva- 
lent in that heavenly model after which his family 
is fashioned. 

In speaking upon the latter topic, the duty of 
maintaining parental authority was specially en- 
forced. But there arises here a question of great 
importance, a question concerning the mode of 

CULTIVATING FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

In answering this, let your attention be still di- 
rected to that family after which yours is to be 
modeled — that great family in heaven, where God 



112 ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

is the Father, and where all the children, from the 
highest angel, down to the least of the redeemed, 
are obedient, and are styled " angels that do his 
pleasure. " God requires of them obedience ; but 
in the exercise of what spirit does he require it ? 
Does he utter his stern mandate, and make heaven 
tremble 1 Does he gather thunder, and make the 
universe shake with fear, as he communicates his 
will ! By no means. " God is love and he 
governs heaven by love : he administers all its 
concerns in the unvarying exercise of a spirit, 
beaming with kindness. The thunder of his power 
and the terror of his majesty, are for the lawless 
and disobedient ; on whom they operate for re- 
straint, or punishment. It would be absurd to 
suppose the obedience of heaven to be secured by 
the chief agency of these divine attributes. It 
would be the spurious obedience of fear, which 
could neither please God, or give joy to the crea- 
ture — and not the genuine obedience of love. God 
secures the obedience of heaven by displaying his 
goodness and holiness — his equity and wisdom? 
and thus diffusing love and adoration of his cha- 
racter, in the hearts of all around him. They 
obey, because they love him : and this is what 
gives an acceptable savour to all creature-offer- 
ings — that they come from the heart. 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 113 

In precisely the same way does God display 
himself to man in the dispensations of his grace. 
He reveals his love. True- — He has exhibited to 
us many things which operate on our fears ; but it 
is not by these things that he aims to gain our 
obedience. They are manifested for the sole pur- 
pose of restraining us from greater and hazardous 
lengths in disobedience — to make us pause, and 
tremble, and cry out, "Vfhat shall I do to be 
saved?" The obedience which we might be led 
to yield, under the influence of such displays, is 
merely of that fitful and transitory nature, which 
many have yielded for a little while, when con- 
science has arisen in its power. 

On Sinai, God displayed his awful attributes. 
But, why ? It was because he came there as a 
Lawgiver to the disobedient, for whom, and for 
whom alone, the Law was ever reduced to statute 
form. He came not to call forth love ; but to im- 
press sinners with the truth, that it was a terrible 
thing to fall into the hands of the living God — he 
came to promulge his violated law, and to engrave 
it before the eyes of a rebellious people. Hence 
it was, that not even so much as a beast should 
touch the mountain lest he die ! And it is for a 
corresponding efTkr , in impressing with fear the 
10* 



114 OX TEE CULTURE OF IILI-il OBEDIENCE, 

lawless and the disobedient, that the solemn threat- 
enings of God's word are written; 

But different are those dealings which are ap- 
propriately termed, the dealings of his grace — dif- 
ferent his manifestations when he determined to 
reclaim a people from among the children of men. 
He wins those that are his. by love : and he go- 
verns them by love. He speaks to them in ac- 
cents of kindness, of invitation, of forbearance : 
instead of threatening, he gives them promises : in- 
stead of terror, he shows them tenderness. He 
had this design when he went to guilty Adam, and 
promised him a Saviour ; he had this design in all 
his promises to the patriarchs ; he had this de- 
sign — -and it then shone forth the brightest — when 
he gave his only begotten Son. and caused his own 
glories to be displayed to human vision, in the per- 
son of the man Christ Jesus. 

Thus, an unceasing and glorious manifestation 
of the loveliness of his own character, in all these 
displays and provisions of his grace, is what we 
plainly behold as that upon which he depends, in- 
strumental hy. to reclaim us to a spirit of accept- 
able obedience. And. accordingly, we find, in 
the experience of the earthly church, that men 
may behold the terrors of the Almighty, till their 
spirits are well nigh crushed — but they are no 



OX TEF CdLTUEE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 115 

better. It is not, until they behold the wonderful 
love of God, in Christ, and forget themselves in 
contemplating it, and experience the mysterious, 
but joy-giving sensations of corresponding love, 
that ihey enter, fully, the family of the redeemed. 
Love has won them, and they obey , they devote 
themselves cheerfully and forever to God. They 
were melted down under the invitation, '"'Come 
unto me, ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest and they find their love 
kindled still more, as they read, " In my Fathers 
house there are many mansions," ccc. 

Now is it not manifest from this brief glance at 
the way in which God rules his family in heaven, 
and his family on earth, that he aims to secure, 
and that he actually does secure their obedience, 
only by love? — and that he, therefore, displays 
his glories 'o them to excite their love 1 In heaven, 
there are no terrors around him ; on earth, where 
he has purposes of mercy, his love is pre-emi- 
nently displayed : while, in hell, only, where there 
is no hope, do his frowns and terrors dwell. 

If, then, wherever he would perpetuate, or cul- 
tivate obedience, our great Father makes pre-emi- 
nent displays of love, in order to win that obe- 
dience as a die e ?'ful offering ; are not earthly pa- 
rents taught, thereby, the spirit, in the exercise 



116 ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

and manifestation of which, they should govern 
their households? Do they desire to cultivate a 
spirit of cheerful, acceptable obedience? — let them 
win it by love. The one that is to be obeyed 
must always be the one to be loved. It is so with 
our heavenly Father, and it should be so with every 
earthly father. If your children love you, they 
will delight to please you, and they will feel sor- 
rowful when they displease you. This is the way 
that we should all feel toward God ; and this is 
the way that you should train your little children 
to feel toward y u. 

Fathers, upon you especially rests th ' govern- 
ment of your families. You are supreme there* 
and you give a tone to all within. Your authority 
is the law in a higher sense than that of the mo- 
ther. And, therefore, it is that a pre-eminent be- 
nignity should mark your deportment. If you 
would have yourselves obeyed chiefly, you must 
render yourselves loved, at least equally, by your 
children. 

That maternal influence is generally greater 
than that of the father, is not questioned, as a 
fact — though it may be questioned as a necessary, 
and a reasonable fact ; where such influence is 
greater, it is because the manifestation of maternal 
love is greater. But why should this be? If the 



OZs THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE* 117 

father is actually constituted chief in authority, is 
it consistent that any other one should be consti- 
tuted chief in filial affections? Does not actual su- 
premacy in authority necessarily imply that no 
other one rises above an equality in dominion over 
the affections of the governed ? How can the fa- 
ther be supreme in the former, while the mother 
surpasses him in the latter. Such an unequal 
proprietorship in filial affections, (as is very com- 
mon) — and such an ascendant influence on the 
part of the mother, as necessarily follows, was 
never designed ; it wars with the intended consti- 
tution of the family, and is therefore unnecessary. 
Fathers may be equally loved by their children, 
and they should guard against that ascetic in- 
fluence of their avocations, by which they too often 
forfeit their appropriate share of ardent, filial af- 
fection- 
It will always be observed, in consistency with 
the foregoing remarks, that where the power of af- 
fection is diminished, the power of control is dimin- 
ished also. In a loosely governed family, though 
extravagant indulgences are lavished, there are 
fewer bonds of affection ; while a regulated, disci- 
plined household, where wholesome and painful 
correction has been wisely administered, is the one 
around which the bonds of filial and parental love 



115 ON THE CULTURE OF PILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

are most securely fastened. Indeed affection, 
and a wise authority, are so inseparably wedded, 
by Him who bas ordered the constitution of all 
things, that the state of the one affords a remarka- 
bly sure indication of the state of the other. 

It is not only true of fathers, but, frequently, of 
mothers also, that they fail to hold that high place 
in filial affection that they should : and many such 
parents wonder why their children are so disobe- 
dient. You are sure that you have commanded 
enough — watched enough — corrected enough ; and 
it is very possible that your children will affirm 
each of these particulars : — but still your children 
remain unruly, and they pay nothing like an ap- 
propriate attention to your wishes. If it is so, 
then, in applying the foregoing principles to your 
case, it is evident that they do not love you as 
they ought : for if they felt their hearts full of 
love, and tenderness, and every filial feeling, they 
would not — they could not do so. 

How has it occurred in your case? — that you 
have failed of winning filial affections. Perhaps 
you have mistaken the end of punishment, and, 
because Solomon has enjoined the rod, you have 
freely used it. It is, by no means, to be said, that 
the rod is never to be used : but it is of the high- 
est importance that the physician wisely adminis- 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 119 

ter his remedies : it is not safe to administer the 
same medicine in all diseases, or in all stages of 
the same disease, merely because the medicine is 
known to be indispensable to the profession. So 
the rod, while indispensable in all spheres of hu- 
man control, is not blindly to be seized as the ever 
suitable means. It frequently affords the shortest 
and most summary process, whereby to obtain an 
immediate result ; and it is to be regretted that so 
many seem inconsiderately to use it for its labor 
saving advantages. But those disciplinarians will 
reap but little success, who aim to save labor in 
their early work. We must learn to be patient, 
and pains-taking, and always, while we seek to 
enforce present, have an eye to future obedience. 
And since every remedy, in proportion to the ef- 
ficiency of its action, requires wisdom in its admin- 
istration, the rod should be applied with care, and 
with a right apprehension of its appropriate effects, 
By the rod, is understood to be signified correc- 
tion, without any limit as to the mode ; which may 
be either physical, or moral. Its immediate and 
legitimate operation is in checking and restraining 
disobedience, and it can operate, therefore, only 
negatively in producing genuine obedience. For 
all the inherent virtue it possesses, it can no more 
be relied on to cultivate a spirit of positive obe- 



120 ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

dience, and to advance the great end of education, 
than the punishment of the lost can be expected 
eventually to purge away their dross and prepare 
them for heaven. Reliance is to be placed, in 
cultivating the obedience of your children, upon an 
entirely different instrumentality— upon the unva- 
rying display of your kindness, mildness, equity 
and love. If this fails to beget, with the blessing 
of God, a corresponding love in your child to you, 
and thus to secure his cheerful obedience, as God 
secures angels' and as Christ secures yours— then 
your child is, to present appearance, as verily lost, 
as is the sinner who will not be won by the dis- 
plays of redeeming love. The rod, and the pri- 
son, while they may yet be of use in restraining 
and hedging in his disobedience, can no more re- 
claim him than hell can reclaim the incorrigible. 

But still there is an advantage in using the rod. 
This advantage, however, is found among its se- 
condary effects. In perfect consistency with the 
previous statements, it may be maintained, that 
when applied by our heavenly Father to his 
earthly children, for their benefit, it has no inhe- 
rent efficacy in reclaiming them. The benefit of 
the chastisement flows from the love that adminis- 
ters it. The rod causes God's people to smart 

and they pause— and here all would end ; but they 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 121 

look and see their Father's Ime — they think of 
the tears of Jesus as he wept over refractory Je- 
rusalem, and this recognition of the tenderness of 
their Father is that which reclaims them to obe- 
dience. The rod would never do it ; but it re- 
veals the love which lies behind it, and speaks 
through it ; for it is not, in itself, a means of grace, 
any more than is everlasting punishment. 

Punishment, then, is efficacious in two respects. 
It is a salutary and effectual restraint upon those 
who trample under foot all the remonstrances of 
love — and it is a needful token of paternal dis- 
pleasure, to touch the hearts of those who are ge- 
nerally obedient. For the former end, it is used 
by God, and may be freely used by us for the ut- 
terly incorrigible, who must be kept in chains of 
suffering and fear ; while for the latter purpose, 
God employs it for the benefit of his people ; and 
parents, in imitation of the great Father's exam- 
pie, may, in like manner, use it for their hopeful 
and affectionate children. But let it not be forgot- 
ten that punishment, whenever resorted to, in 
hopeful cases, is to be used only as an emblem of 
painful displeasure. So that, really, the efficacy of 
all your corrections and discipline must depend up- 
on the love which your child hears you. If he so 

loves you that he cannot bear your displeasure, 
11 



122 on the ::;it";-z or filial obedience. 

then the needed correction will touch his little 
hear:. But if he loves you not at all, or but little. 
:he benefit if your discipline will be proportionate, 
Thus it is all-important that your child should en- 
terrain for you a supreme and ardent anection : 
else, ail that you do toward cultivating obedience 
in early life will be of little avail. 

In too many lamentable instances this seems to 
be overlooked, and parents who are truly anxious, 
and conscientious seize the rod, and forget that, 
as certain kinds of evil spirits go out only by 
prayer and fasting, so disobedience can be effec- 
tually driven from the heart of a child only by 
love : and they ply the rod : and they speak in 
trues of sternness and severity, and the mandate 
goes forth wi:h an accent that makes every infant 
heart tremble. And it is very possible that the 
parent does all this without an angry feeling, but 
merely under the influence of a commendable de- 
termination that his authority be sustained. But 
he errs in executing his purpose ; the child feels 
the rod. but he does not see the love. The parent 
may be conscious of its real indwelling, but he 
does not re veal it. Sinai, in its influence upon our 
lost rate, e meets nothing in cultivating obedience, 
until we read the same laws, shedding a milder 
radiance from Calvary. 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 123 

But how, asks the parent, shall I show this spirit 
of love which I acknowledge is the spirit whereby 
God rules heaven, and Jesus Christ holds my 
heart? It seems to me that my children ought to 
know that 1 love them and be mindful that I pro- 
vide for them ; and if they would only think, they 
might know that it gives me nothing but pain to 
punish them. 

But, reader, it is very possible that your chil- 
dren do not know as much as they ought to, and 
it is quite sure that they do not think as much as 
they ought to ; and if they did, they might be very 
likely to think, for ought they discover, that you 
punish them in the same spirit in which they seek 
to enforce their wills among one another. 

Suppose your Heavenly Father proceeded on a 
similar assumption in his dealings with you, and 
with all the family of man. He could surely do 
it with much more righteousness. Suppose he 
had said of this lost race, when he first entertained 
the thought of displaying his love to effect our re- 
demption — why should I do this? They ought to 
know that I love them — that I built the earth, and 
garnished it for their dwelling place — that I up- 
hold them, and give them all they have. If they 
would only think, they must know that, as I live 
1 have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. 



124 ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

This was not the language that was used in 
heaven. It might all be true and just, but God 
condescended to show us his love — to declare his 
pity, and to stoop to our blindness ; and Jesus 
Christ stooped even unto death, in his accommo- 
dation to our depravity, that he might convince 
us — of what was written as plain as noonday, 
above us, if we would only look— that " God so 
loved the world " Now we see it ; it touches our 
hearts : the voice of love, speaking from Calvary, 
awakens our love ; and the displeasure of such 
love, we cannot endure ; we fly every sin that 
wounds it. It is verily true that we never should 
have been reclaimed, had not God condescended 
to our blindness, and wrought out, in blood, the 
demonstration that he loved us. 

Throughout the foregoing remarks, it will be 
observed that the Heavenly Model of a Christian 
Family has been kept constantly in view. The 
author trusts that it has not been consulted in 
vain ; and that the view of it will not fail to be in- 
structive to parents w r ho desire to be followers of 
God in the duties of their parental relations, as 
well as in their personal characters. 

If what has been said is just, it cannot fail to 
appear, as a necessary pre-requisite to filial obe- 
dience, THAT THE AFFECTIONS OF THE CHILD BE CON« 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 125 
CENTRATED UPON THE PARENTS ABOVE ALL EARTHLY 

persons or objects. True obedience must have 
its origin in love ; and as the obedience required 
in this relation is of the highest earthly nature, so 
the love subsisting here should be the strongest. 

Parents should use every lawful endeavour to 
cultivate the affections of their children, that lead- 
ing them in the habits of early filial piety, they 
may prepare them for a higher piety toward their 
Eternal Father. And as God cultivates your obe- 
dience by appealing to and exciting and strength- 
ening your love ; so do to your children. Do 
something more than provide for their wants ; 
stoop in numberless ways to sliow them that you love 
them. Since God accommodates his demonstra- 
tions to your criminal blindness ; much more 
should you condescend to the feeble minds of your 
children. Use every endearment to win them to 
you. Never turn from them suddenly, or receive 
them coldly, as they run to greet your approach- 
ing footsteps. Teach them, not only that they 
may, but that you expect them to be joyful at the 
sound of your coming. Let them caress you ; and 
then, caress them in return. It is unworthy of 
you, as a parent, to call this trifling business : for 
it is hard to find many things so important. It is 

more important than your money. God thus 
11* 



126 ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

stoops to us; giving us every day some extra to- 
kens of his love; winning us by unexpected, un- 
merited pains. And when, in like manner, you 
win your children, and convince them, by demon- 
strations adapted to their understanding and ad- 
dressing their hearts, that you delight in their 
love — then, you may expect them to delight in 
your smiles and to grieve at the tokens of your dis- 
pleasure — then, if, for any misdemeanor, they see, 
not sternness, but sadness and sorrow clothing your 
anxious brow, and shrouding its wonted smiles, 
they will feel the rebuke, and seek not to grieve 
you again. 

It is delightful to witness those families where 
the tokens of parental displeasure which, per- 
chance, from time to time, are needful, take effect 
upon the children's hearts, and draw forth tears of 
child-like, affectionate penitence. Who does not 
see that such parents have a mighty hold on filial 
obedience ; and that, by a wise culture, they are 
laying, in these infantile exercises of their chil- 
dren towards themselves, a promising foundation 
of gospel penitence and contrition, for the full de- 
velopements of which we may look, with some rea- 
sonable expectation, when the child's enlarged and 
chastened conceptions begin to apprehend its rela- 
tions to its Heavenly Father ? 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 127 



Remember, then, that with the successful culti- 
vation of the obedience, you must unite the cultk 
vation of the affections of your children. Then 
your discipline will avail. Whereas, on the other 
hand, correction will only prove an irksome re- 
straint, of short duration, from which they will 
violently break loose in future years. 

Avoid any words or tones, in addressing 
your children, but those that are replete 
with kindness. In this, also, the example of our 
Heavenly Father instructs us. There is an inex- 
pressible tenderness pervading all his remonstrant 
ces against the sins of his people. While he 
threatens judgments, and sore chastisements, he 
yet remembers mercy, and promises to return 
unto them, if they will return unto him. "Come 
now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : 
though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as 
white as snow ; though they be red like crimson 
they shall be as wool/*' Let the parent whose 
tones of reproof are harsh and forbidding, turn ancl 
read the fifty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, and ponder 
its heavenly spirit, and ask himself for what he 
would consent that such language be banished 
from the Bible. 

And now, beloved parent, if you would be like 
God — if you would keep him before your eyes as 



128 ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

the great prototype of the parental relation— then 
guard your words, and let every tone be love. 
This may be enjoined as an universal rule ; whe- 
ther you are making a requisition, or reproving 
for disobedience. If you speak, speak pleasantly ; 
speak moderately; for often hasty words are mis- 
taken for angry ones. If you have a requisition 
to make of a child which you think may be un- 
pleasant, make it with peculiar kindness of tone ; 
if there is a reluctance, and you have to com- 
mand, look pleasant while you do it ; and let your 
accents, while they are firm, have much of the 
music of love. If you are compelled to correct, 
do not be content to say that you are pained, but 
let it be shown, in the tones and looks of contin- 
uing, unchanging love. And let the beginning, 
and the middle, and the end of the contest find 
you in the possession of the same love. When 
the child yields a cheerful obedience, then smile 
upon it, and stoop to tell it, in its own simple lan- 
guage, how sad you did feel. 

"Provoke not your children to wrath;" do not 
be peevish ; do not be fretful ; do not be stern 
with your children. Our Heavenly Father is not 
so with us. When he corrects us, the Spirit whis- 
pers, "Whom he loveth, he chasteneth." 

The following anecdote, from the Mother's Mag- 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 129 



azine, vol. vii. p. 263, is too apposite to be omit- 
ted. "Conversing the other day with an interest- 
ing little girl, between the ages of six and seven. 
I took occassion to impress upon her mind the 
debt of gratitude due from her to her heavenly 
Parent for bestowing upon her so good and kind a 
father, whom every body loves. I was perfectly 
thunder-struck by her answer. Looking me full 
in the face with her soft blue eyes, she replied, 
'He never speaks kind to meJ Perhaps this 
christian father, harrassed with the cares of busi- 
ness, was unconscious that he had roughly checked 
the fond attentions of his child ; — but could cares, 
or the interruptions of his child, excuse unkind- 
ness, or a total want of tokens of endearment 1 
Will fathers examine their habits on this point?" 

It will aid all parents, who feel, under the first 
impulse, fretted by the fond and well meant inter- 
ruptions of an affectionate child, to think, ere they 
repel the intrusion, of their own childlike relation 
to an Heavenly Father. The thought will lead 
them to hear the words, or receive the short ca- 
ress, and then dismiss the unwitting intruder with 
a smile of reciprocated love. So we would have 
our Father do. 

Manifest forbearance toward your chtl- 
mm ? for a relentless spirit is the last that fallen 



130 ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 

man should exhibit to a fellow creature. Forgive 
your children, and restore them to your confi- 
dence — even as your Father forgiveth you. 
Parents, especially fathers, should seek, as 

MUCH AS POSSIBLE, TO BE WITH THEIR CHILDREN. 

Remember that home has claims which, in their 
sphere, are not secondary to the claims of the 
counting house, or the shop. Some parents are 
necessarily absent more than others; but all 
should remember that if they would have their 
children's affections, they must give those children 
some of their time and attention. Our Heavenly 
Father communes with his children. 

Thus, by this manifestation of uniform parental 
tenderness, there is reasonable hope that the af- 
fections of the child will be developed, and there 
will be laid the true and permanent foundation of 
filial obedience. 

But to possess and manifest this uniform spirit 
of love, requires great vigilance and self-control 
on the part of the parent. He must seek daily, 
at the foot of the cross, to be imbued with the 
spirit of heaven. As an abiding disposition, it is 
of the grace of God. The father of the house- 
hold must draw nigh unto the Father of all. And 
when, christian parents, you do this and discharge 
your duties in any good measure as they have 



ON THE CULTURE OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE. 131 

been described — then you will have indeed intro- 
duced into the government of your families, the 
same great principles and spirit by which the 
Eternal Father governs his children ; — you will 
have faithfully modeled your family after the hea- 
ven above, that it may be, in itself, a little heaven 
on earth, 



CHAPTER IX, 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 

The parental duties and the filial habits, of 
which the previous chapters have been treating, 
are manifestly those that concern early childhood ; 
and it is to the first and earliest periods of exist- 
ence that the observations which they contain 
have their prominent adaptation. It is of the im- 
portance of that season, as the one of surest hope, 
and as the one, therefore, most inviting to parental 
diligence and effort, that we would speak in this 
chapter. 

The monstrous doctrine is not without its open 
advocates— that children should be left unbiassed, 
during their early years, by any religious teach- 
ings, lest the judgment of their maturer age be 
unduly influenced. But if the family is, as main- 
tained throughout these pages, a religious institu- 
tion established by God for the infant and youth- 



134 THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 

ful culture of immortal beings ; then nothing can 
be more absurd than such a sentiment. It over- 
looks the very object of the family, and discerns 
not the wise and harmonious adaptations with 
which its internal constitution and relations abound. 
And forgetting that plain, antagonist fact, that in 
the field of the world the enemy is sowing tares, it 
bases itself on the foolish and empty presumption 
that while the parents refuse to pre-occupy the 
infant mind with good, the devil and the world 
will— from courtesy, we presume — withhold the 
seeds of evil. 

But such an error needs not a refutation. It 
is only to be desired that all those who will rea- 
dily unite in its rejection, would as cheerfully 
adopt its opposite as the ground of their efficient 
action ; manifesting an appropriate zeal to im- 
prove the golden opportunities of early childhood. 

It is the fit season. There is a period when 
the infant spirit cannot look or know aught be- 
yond the family circle ;— when the influences that 
mould the character are all gathered around the 
domestic fireside, and brought under the power of 
parental control. How careful should parents be 
lest, at this precious season, they revel only in its 
sweets and forget its duties. Here, and at this 
time, the child can know no other god than its 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFPOE.T. 135 

father. It loves its mother, and obeys her com- 
mands ; but it sees her. as a faithful wife, looking 
up to her husband, and acquiescing in his will. 
The aspect of every thing and the tone of every 
arrangement in a well regulated household, 
teaches the child that the father is the head ; the 
centre of household affections, and the object of 
household dependence : he is supreme, and the 
little child knows nought beyond. 

Let the adult readers of this little book but re- 
cur to the feelings of their childhood. With what 
sentiments did your father inspire you 1 Was he 
not the strongest man — the wisest man— the rich- 
est man — the lest man ? With most or ail these 
attributes, } T our infant thoughts invested him : 
there was a season when they went not, and could 
not go, beyond him. Even after, and long after 
you learned the name of God, your conceptions of 
him — through the feebleness of your intellects — 
were too dim to modify essentially your view of 
the earthly father. 

And some, perhaps, are ready to seize upon 
tins very statement, and argue that religious train- 
ing cannot be available at such a period — that, 
because the child cannot understand about God 
and Jesus Christ, and the great doctrines of salva- 
tion, therefore, hopeful parental effort must be de- 



136 THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 

layed until a season of further intelligence, and a 
more developed understanding. It is the influ- 
ence of this secret impression, we fear, that is ma- 
nifest in such lamentable neglect. But how does 
it stand the test of the fact regarding this very 
earliest period of life, that— 

It is tee indicated season. It is indicated as 
the appropriate season of religious culture by 
scripture ordinances. There is the ordinance of 
Infant Baptism — useful, surely, in this respect. 
The rite of circumcision, which is of correspond- 
ing import, was, by express statute, to be perform- 
ed on the eighth day. It is a fair inference from 
this and other considerations, that the ordinance of 
infant baptism should be performed as soon after 
the birth of the child as circumstances will wisely 
permit. But why so early ?— unless it be an in- 
dication from God that your spiritual responsibili- 
ties cannot be too early felt, nor faithful efforts for 
the good of your child be too early made. You 
are bidden to bring it in solemn ordinance, while 
yet it can scarce turn a steady eye, or raise a fee- 
ble hand, and baptize it in the name of the Father, 
Son and Holy Ghost. Does not the very ordi- 
nance bid you awake to your duty from the very 
commencement of your infant's life 1 And where 
is your thought that you must wait till your child 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 



137 



can understand about God, ere you betake your- 
self to the employment of hopeful instrumentali- 
ties ? Let this particular import of the baptismal 
ordinance be weighed ! 

There seem to have been two things that our 
Lord was mainly anxious should be engraven on 
the memories and the hearts of his followers. 
The first was the sacrifice of himself as the foun- 
dation of all our hopes : hence the institution of 
the Lord's Supper. The second was his covenant 
grace in behalf of our offspring, and our indicated 
duty of early and constant fidelity to their souls : 
hence the ordinance of Infant Baptism. 

Moreover the plain and repeated injunctions of 
the Scriptures concerning early culture, are too 
unequivocal and imperative to be misunderstood. 
And then, to all these things we may add the in- 
quiry, whether the opposing idea is not in itself 
preposterous ? Can it be that in the most impor- 
tant branch of education, there can no efficient 
advance be made, for the first ten or twelve years 
of life 1 Did our Saviour think so when he took 
little children and blessed them, and said, "Surfer 
little children to come unto me and forbid them 
not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven?"— 
Nay: — the ordinance of baptism, — the tenor of 
12* 



138 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 



God's word, — the example of our Saviour, — our 
own reflections teach us — nay. 

Both the fitness of the season, and ^.indica- 
tions of God, lead to the conclusion, — not only 
that early effort should be made, — but that a little 
child is susceptible of strictly religious training, 
and may become an object of special divine favor, 
before it can understand any thing beyond the 
sphere of the family, or look upon any being as 
superior to its own loved father. And hence we 
have exhibited the father as the god of such an 
infant, and have enjoined it on the parent to ad- 
minister, correspondingly, the affairs of his house- 
hold. And we hold that the religion of such Utile 
children^ as far as its manifestations are concern- 
ed, must consist, for the most part, during that pe- 
riod in which they are too young to understand 
much about God, in exercising the same disposi- 
tions and forming the same habits toward the 
earthly father, that they are hereafter to possess 
toward God. And the usual operations of divine 
grace, in blessing and succeeding parental exer- 
tions, and in answering parental prayer, are to be 
seen, — not in the little infant outstripping its years, 
and descanting on the wonders of redeeming love, 
and striding onto angels' themes — but, rather, in 
its faithful, affectionate, conscientious and cheerful 
fulfilment of its earthly father's will. 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 139 

Is your little child obedient; does it readily 
yield its own will to yours, and pleasantly take 
up its cross because its father bids it ? Does it love 
you with all its heart ; does its desire and delight 
seem to be to live in your smile ; is its little heart 
ever ready to break with anguish, whenever you 
may feel bound to say, in sober tone, 66 My child,, 
why did you thus?" Is that the spirit of your little 
child? And, were you called to stand around its 
lifeless form, might we not say to you, with double 
assurance ? — Weep not ; its habits were those of 
obedience and love, and contrition for its sins — * 
against you ; these were the habits of that immor- 
tal spirit; and when, passing from this lesser 
sphere, it beholds the earthly parent no more, 
and opens its infant eyes and conceptions to the 
glories of the heavenly, it will have the same bab- 
bits, and enter, therefore, to dwell with God for- 
ever. 

But it should be borne in mind, that so far as 
such a character as this is considered as evidence 
of the little child's religion, and that the foolish- 
ness which a corrupt nature had bound up in the 
heart w 7 as overruled — so far it should be also re- 
garded as the effect of divine grace succeeding pa- 
rental effort; that God may have the appropriate 
honor of being the author of all in us that is ac- 
ceptable in his holy sight. 



140 THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 

On the other hand, is your child disobedient ; 
does it fret and is it sour ; does it transgress your 
rules and manifest no concern, save what the 
dread of punishment inspires? Does it think much 
more of itself than of you, and care about its own 
way, only ; and about your way, none? 

While it is readily conceded that there is a dif- 
ference, both in the moral and physical tempera- 
ment of children, and that neither the same amount 
of parental fidelity, or of divine grace, will effect 
the same even, quiet and affectionate subjection in 
one child that it will in another : — and while this 
concession is no more than a just consolation for 
those faithful and anxious parents who may have 
children possessed, through physical or other cau- 
ses, of peculiarly unfavorable traits — still it must 
be said of such an habitually disobedient child 
as is described in the foregoing paragraph — the 
parents have neglected it. And, more than this, 
were we to see that little child laid in an early- 
grave, while we could never, without awful pre- 
sumption, undertake to pronounce adversely con- 
cerning it ; still, what parent could, were it his 
own child, speak with the same comforting assu- 
rance of its future state, that he could, had it man- 
ifested a subdued, and affectionate, and gracious 
disposition in all its embryo earthly relations? 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 141 



What conscientious parent could refrain from ask- 
ing himself, if that child never loved, or obeyed 
me, its earthly parent, how can I expect it to en- 
ter at once, with an obedient and devoted disposi- 
tion, among the children of God ? How could he 
escape the sting of awful guilt that he had not 
taught that child obedience, and won, by every 
art, its opening affections ? 

Let early infancy and childhood, then, be the 
season of diligent culture. The child is capable 
of performing its allotted duties ; and in the dis- 
charge of those duties, within the sphere of its lim- 
ited conceptions, consists its religion; the child 
commends itself to man, and it commends itself to 
God. In the earliest stage of its rational exis- 
tence, in the narrow walls of its nursery, the 
world, open to its mind, is perfect in its varieties ; 
and all, there, is under the eye and control of the 
parent. Who will let slip this transient opportu- 
nity 1 It flies on the wings of light : and when 
watchfulness is neglected here, traits, that might 
have been crushed or modified in the bud, will fail 
of being discovered, until they are too powerful 
and mighty to resist. Since its improvement is so 
invaluable, it is painful to record that — 

It is a neglected season. There is not much 
reason to complain that parents entirely fail of 



142 THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFOET. 

feeling anxious for their children. At some peri- 
ads, all christian parents must experience great 
solicitude for their offspring. They are often 
found praying for them, and admonishing them ; 
and are often witnessed with hearts aching he- 
cause of their youthful waywardness, or because 
of the confirmed irreligion and thoughtlessness of 
their manhood. 

But here is their grand mistake — their anxieties, 
their prayers, their counsels, their pleadings, their 
tears are Urn hie. They allow childhood to slip 
by unheeded. They are then amused with the 
developing intelligence, and cheered with the in- 
nocent prattle, and enraptured by the unfolding 
affections of their little ones. In the midst of pa- 
rental delights, parental responsibilities are un- 
heeded, and deferred to a future day. And when 
youth appears, characterised by utter thoughtless- 
ness, they begin to feel, as they should have felt 
from the drst dawning of their child's existence : 
they begin to pray in earnest — to watch, with 
pain, filial insensibility to spiritual things, and 
growing impatience of parental restraints. Xow 
they begin to think of instructing and importuning 
them. But they shrink from the task lest it be 
irksome to the unwonted ears of their children; 
or lest their own tongues should refuse to be un- 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 143 



loosed from the silence of by-gone years ; and 
they beseech the minister, or some pious friend, 
to perform the duty of faithfulness which God had 
prepared them, by the alliance of nature, to dis- 
charge more easily and effectually than any oth- 
ers. 

And when youth is seen merging itself into 
manhood, while yet the children are aliens from 
the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the 
covenant of promise, then are the sensibilities of 
devout parents more keenly awakened, and their 
anxieties assume a still greater magnitude ; and, 
at times, they feel the full measure of parental 
solicitude. 

But these feelings should be possessed earlier. 
These prayers and tears, these feelings of anxie- 
ty and solicitude, prompting to earnest effort and 
faithful discipline, should mingle with the earliest 
feelings of parental delight, and should be experi- 
enced and borne amid the earliest developements 
of their offspring's childhood ; for the manifesta- 
tions of youth are but the growth, and the deve- 
lopements of manhood, but the harvest of infantile 
and childhood education. 

Ah ! you now mourn over your wayward chil- 
dren as they advance in life ; but did you really 
mourn over their disobedience in comparative in- 



144 THE SEASON 01 PARENTA1 EFFORT. 

fancy? Oh! if you could but have foreseen things 
as you now behold them, how would your anxie- 
ty, as well as your delight, have been awakened, 
as your eyes first beheld their dawning existence! 
And why did you not foresee that there was an 
inevitable, and growing, and stengtheniog connec- 
tion, between the first habits of the infant and 
every habit and thought of its subsequent exis- 
tence! Its earliest notes of shrill anger should 
have been notes of alarm to your soul ! Had you 
then felt, as you have since felt, you might have 
saved yourself man}" restless nights, many aching 
hours, and many disappointed hopes ! 

When childhood is neglected, and discipline is 
deferred till the child grows older, and manhood, 
even approaches: then, growing impatience un- 
der unaccustomed restraints, united with the im- 
petuousness of unchecked ardor, oppose mighty 
obstacles to parental extorts ; and the parent, too 
often, is left to sit down and weep over an unsanc- 
titled child. 

Remember, ye parents who may yet profit by 
admonition, that early childhood is the season of 
hope — the season that should stir up your anx- 
ieties and prayers. If they sleep during this pe- 
riod, they will probably be awakened by deve- 
lopements which you should have prevented, but 
which you cannot change. 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 145 

Childhood is the season rendered hopeful 
by scripture promises. The very fitness of the 
season unfolds a promise: and were nothing far- 
ther manifest than the truths contained in this 
little volume, concerning the great end and the di- 
vine adaptations of the family, there would be 
enough of unfailing, heavenly promise, to inspire 
parental hopes, and excite parental effort. But 
our assurances are not those of the clearest infer- 
ence, merely; we have unequivocal, written pro- 
mises; and were there no other than that embodi- 
ed in the words, " Train up a child in the way he 
should go, and when he is old lie will not depart 
from it," we should find, in that, a sufficient en- 
dorsement of our previous assurances, and might 
repose safely in the conclusion, that between pa- 
rental fidelity and filial rectitude, there is an un- 
failing connection. 

A farther discussion of this covenanted and es- 
tablished connection will be waived here, that it 
may be entered upon more fully in a subsequent 
chapter. 

Since childhood is the hopeful season of paren- 
tal effort, it is important that that effort be intelli- 
gent, systematic and persevering. The phrase- 
ology employed by the wise man, « Train up a 
child/' &c, signifies a course of conduct which, far 



146 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 



from being the result of occasional impulses, ac- 
cords with deliberate and intelligent system. An 
end must be distinctly apprehended, and all the 
means employed must be wisely adapted to its pro- 
motion. 

Here opens a field of thought and investigation, 
the least view of which will establish the convic- 
tion that a thoughtless parent can never be a, faith- 
ful one ; and that a faithful parent must be one of 
sound discretion and quick discernment. Indeed 
well trained children afford no contemptible evi- 
dence of parental intellect, as well as of parental 
fidelity and piety. 

But where, and how numerous are the parents 
who are in the daily habit of meditating upon the 
principles and mode of wisely discharging their 
obligations? Yet, it is a subject which the sight of 
their children should bring under constant review. 

The influence of every habit of your own upon 
your child should be pondered ; the best methods 
of checking its faults and cultivating its virtues 
should be investigated and understood — and every 
useful hint, whether derived from others, or sug- 
gested by your own reflections should be intro- 
duced into your daily administration. But it is a 
melancholy fact that many (and may we not say 
most) parents seem to think no more of principles 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 147 



and system in the training of their children, than 
they do of the laws of the heavenly bodies: and 
they are as verily strangers to those truths which 
form the basis of all correct education, as they are 
to the sciences of Geometry and Mechanics. 

Duties should have our attention and thoughts 
in proportion to their importance. Would you 
think of building a house without a knowledge of 
the art; or of managing and directing your do- 
mestic concerns, without being first versed in the 
proprieties and rules of the undertaking? But why 
be diligent and studious in these worldly avoca- 
tions and overlook the training of those spirits 
whom God has given you in precious charge ; 
why be anxious about every improvement in house- 
wifery — every new principle which may save la- 
bor or expense ; or why, ye fathers, be studious 
of every change in the times which may effect the 
property you hope to amass and entail on your 
children — why be so anxious to establish those 
political principles which you deem essential to the 
highest prosperity of your country ; and still neg- 
lect to investigate and apply those priceless prin- 
ciples which, adopted in the government of your 
children, will tend to insure them the blessing 
of God — a competency here — and eternal life 
hereafter ? 



148 



THE SEASON OF PARENTAL EFFORT. 



Let youthful parents, before whom all these 
things are opening, ponder well their duties. 
There are three comprehensive errors which they 
will be wise to avoid, viz., parental control is not 
established early enough — it is not systematic and 
even enough in its maintenance— -and it is relaxed 
or relinquished too early. When children, espe- 
cially boys, begin to emerge from childhood they 
too generally emerge from parental watchfulness 
and restraint. It is equally criminal for the pa- 
rent to allow a habit at sixteen or twenty, as to 
allow it earlier. Where childhood is improved as 
it should be, there is but little, if any difficulty, m 
guiding the youth and the mam 



CHAPTER X. 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

If it should seem to any that the parental office 
has been unduly magnified in the recent chapters, 
while God has been rather forgotten, and that af- 
fections toward the former have been substituted 
for affections to the latter, it will be borne in mind 
that hitherto, as far as the details of instruction 
have been considered, reference has been profess- 
edly: had to that first period of life when the child 
knows nothing beyond the family, and can look 
no higher for a god than to its own father. It is 
only while he is in this sphere — a sphere evident 
to all — that it has been asserted the effects of di- 
vine grace will generally be manifest in habits of 
filial obedience, tenderness and love. But, in this 
particular, it is conceded, we are not too strictly 
to limit God. Such as have been represented, 
may be the more common manifestations of grace 
13* 



150 ON" GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

in very early childhood, while it is not to be deni= 
ed, that little children are sometimes wonderfully 
taught of God. and are made to exhibit a deep 
knowledge of divine things. The world is not 
without many authentic records of such : and it is 
delightful to contemplate them as demonstrations 
of the truth that the Spirit of God teaches men ; 
for on no other principle can such instances be 
explained. 

But if such are the only evidences of childhood 
piety, and of the indwelling of grace, where is our 
hope for the large portion of our race who die in 
early childhood ! May not the faithful, praying 
parents that are called to weep over the dying 
agonies of an obedient and tender child who has 
distinguished himself, during the three or four 
short years of his existence, by love, and tender- 
ness, and cheerful subjection to them — may they 
not feel an assurance, when they commend him to 
God, and may they not be comforted in view of 
his death, even though he has not spoken wonders, 
and manifestly is ignorant of the nature of that 
great change that awaits him? Who can refuse 
this comfort, especially to pious and faithful pa- 
rents I But if they have any title to it, that title 
rests on the previous assumption, that grace was 
resident in its little heart; "for by grace are ye 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 151 

saved" — whence it becomes evident that grace 
may exist when its manifestations are confined to 
the developements of the child within that little- 
sphere where the earthly parents stand as the 
highest objects of distinct recognition and love, 

The other class of cases, which are freely con- 
ceded as existing, are to be regarded as extra-or- 
dinary, rather than as establishing a standard 
whereby our expectations are to be unchangeably 
graduated : they convey important encourage- 
ment to parental prayer and effort, by establish- 
ing, beyond controversy, the fact, that God can as 
really control and sanctify infant minds, as the 
spirits of adults, and by exposing the futility of 
that objection which resting upon the assumed in- 
capacity of children, throws its shelterless protec- 
tion over parental inaction and neglect. The 
contemplation of such past instances, and the oc- 
currence of every new one should awaken to new 
faith and exertions, and to stronger hopes, because 
of the conviction which is rendered thus firmer 
and firmer, that out of the mouth of babes and 
sucklings he can perfect his praise. 

All that should be insisted upon, as a proper 
encouragement, is that parents are not necessarily 
to infer that their labor is lost if their children 
fail of exhibiting astonishing marks of deep spirit- 



152 ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

ual knowledge; they may be really sanctified, 
though their understandings are not wonderfully 
enlarged. The more common evidences of their 
change are to be sought in the habits of a subdued, 
cheerful, affectionate, obedient spirit — a spirit that 
is contrite — wounded — bruised, at the thought of 
having merited the displeasure of a fond and loved 
parent. Such a spirit, when perfected, is, seem, 
ingly, godliness in embryo; it is the religion of 
the child's sphere, and apparently contains the 
seeds of gospel love, penitence, and obedience ; it 
may be regarded as standing connected with 
grace, either as the result of its actual operation, 
or as a stock which God is carefully and gra- 
ciously preparing for the future ingrafting of 
piety. 

But your children are to pass from the nursery 
to the scenes of active life ; they are to outgrow 
the notions of childhood — to become citizens of a 
world without the family, and the more direct 
subjects of a dominion that is over all, and that 
endureth forever. And the question has perhaps 
already arisen in the mind of the reader — how 
shall I effect the transfer of these feelings which 
by faithfulness, and love, and the blessing of God, 
I have been enabled to cultivate in my little child 
toward me— how- shall I effect their transfer from 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 153 



me as their supreme object, unto that God upon 
whom alone they can thus lawfully rest ? 

This is a right and highly important inquiry. 
It shows that the one proposing it is conscious of 
being but a steward of the affections and obedi- 
ence of his children— that he desires not to mo- 
nopolize the former for his own delight, or the 
latter for his own convenience: but to "render 
unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and 
unto God the things that are God's. 55 

Perhaps some are inclined to particularize the 
inquiry, and ask when — at what period of life is 
this transfer to be made ; and when ought I to 
labor, and expect to see my child recognizing 
God, and looking, in the exercise of his filial dis- 
positions, higher than myself? A part of this ques- 
tion cannot be answered. It is left with God to 
determine the times and seasons of all these things. 
In the case of a child who has become an actual 
subject of divine grace in infancy — as was true of 
the prophet Samuel — the opening of the mind, and 
the consequent transfer of the affections from the 
smaller to the larger sphere, is not, like regenera- 
tion, an instantaneous work ; but, like all the 
transitions of this life from one stage to another— 
from infancy to childhood ; from childhood to 
youth ; from youth to manhood, and from mai>- 



154 ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

hood to old age, the precise lines of which cannot 
be denoted, and which vary according to the pe- 
culiar developements of individuals. There is an 
age, of which we can say — the child is too young 
to comprehend the relations of its eternal exis- 
tence ; and there is another, when the faculties of 
the youth are sufficiently developed. But the two 
stages are so blended that it is impossible to assign 
the transition to any definite period. Of these pe- 
riods, God only knows. 

But as to when you are to labor with reference 
to this transition, it is plain to reply — at all times ; 
during every stage of your children's pupilage. 

The question returns, how is it to be effected 1 
If the Lord has sanctified your child in the ear- 
lier period of its existence — your instructions and 
love and holy example having been rendered ef- 
ficient, by divine grace, to its right culture— then 
it is already a child of God; it is already in the 
covenant of grace — that sure and everlasting cov- 
enant whereby God obligates himself to watch 
over it, and lead it through every portion of its ex- 
istence. Oh ! how you should labor and pray, 
and watch and live, that you may deposite your 
child, while even an infant, in this sure place ; 
God will then watch over it, and you need not fear 
what men or devils can do unto it. 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 



155 



But though God will surely watch over your 
child, and lead it through this critical period, and 
cause its light to shine clearly forth, if indeed it is 
a child of his, you are not, thereby, relieved of 
responsibilities ; for it is an established law that 
God works, not by superseding, but through the 
agency of human exertions ; and moreover, until 
the full developement is manifest, you cannot 
be certain that your child is already a child of 
his grace. The assurance, if you could possess 
it, of God's grace actually imparted to your child, 
might legitimately afford you comfort in the midst 
of your efforts, but by no means any exemption 
from their burden. These efforts should be dili- 
gently made. A brief mention of some of the 
more prominent ones will be here attempted. 

YOU SHOULD, CONTINUALLY, FROM THEIR EAR- 
LIEST YEARS, SPEAK TO YOUR CHILDREN OF GOD. 

How can they love him unless they know him? 
And how can they know him unless they are 
taught concerning him? Surely the light of nature 
will not do more for their eyes than it has done 
for the eyes of the heathen who know not God. 
If you would train their affections and obedience 
for one higher than yourself, you must teach them 
of him who is the great end of their existence, 
from the very opening of their infant understand. 



156 ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

iflgs. You are not to wait till they can compre- 
hend God— for no angel can attain to this; you 
are not to wait till they can apprehend the logical 
argument by which God is proved to exist ; but 
you are to repose the existence of the great God 
among the very elementary truths of their educa- 
tion. Long before the child can have any ripen- 
ed apprehensions of his existence and attributes, it 
can have its thoughts, and can revolve them in its 
infant way. 

And your children can be interested in these 
things, earlier than perhaps you are aware. You 
can talk to them about some absent grand-parent 
whom, though they have never seen, they begin 
to love. And can you not talk to them about that 
dear Father in heaven, who is greater and better 
than this good father on earth ? And can you not 
show them the stars that he made, and the beauti- 
ful grass he causes to grow, and the flowers that 
blow so sweetly? Andean you not tell them of 
that little brother or sister, or parent who has 
gone to be with God ? Why can you not make 
these some of the most frequent and pleasing topics 
of conversation with little children ? Can you not 
tell them that when you lie in the grave that God 
will be their dear Father, and he will love them? 
And when your child offends you, and you are 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 157 



forced to look displeased, and its little heart begins 
to break, why can you not stoop and tell it that 
the dear Father in heaven is grieved too, and that 
he feels as you feel ? 

Thus you may cause thoughts of God to be in- 
troduced very early and very pleasantly into the 
mind of the child; and nothing is more true than 
that you cannot acquaint it too early with the cha- 
racter, the claims, and the loveliness of that Being 
whom you aim to establish as the great and ulti- 
mate object of its affections. As it grows older, 
you can talk still farther of those things which are 
calculated to unfold to its mind the holiness and 
loveliness of God ; teaching it to feel towards the 
Father that is unseen, just as you teach it to feel 
toward yourself. And while this course is pur- 
sued, the intellectual as well as the moral training 
of the child is best secured, and its mind is led 
into early and easy contact with subjects of an in- 
finitely higher order than those which, too gene- 
rally and exclusively, compose the topics of the 
nursery. 

YOU SHOULD AIM TO RENDER RELIGIOUS TOPICS 

pleasing and attractiye. True, the heart of 
the child is depraved, but much may be done to 
obviate the full difficulties arising thence. There 
is such an error— and one too often committed 
14 



158 ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

by the most devoted parents — as rendering reli- 
gion irksome to their children, by indiscreet modes 
and seasons of address. There is an impatient, 
anxious, fault-finding tone which is too often 
adopted, instead of that pleasant, natural, cheerful 
way in which the great matters of religion are 
more appropriately and usefully presented. 

Surely there are no more delightful themes 
than those afforded by the history and work of 
redemption; there are none that are in themselves 
so attractive ; they hold heaven in wonder and in 
praise ; and if, with our meditation and conversa- 
tion on these topics we mingled more — not of the 
admitted, but — of the commanded joy of the apos- 
tle, we should see that through all our social re- 
lations, the power of our religion would be vastly 
invigorated. In winning, social aspects should 
religion be presented daily in our families — not as 
a thing of constraint, but as the spontaniety of our 
spirits. Our conduct, our words, our prayers 
should always thus commend it. 

But in order thus to speak of, and present reli- 
gion, it is indispensable that parents thus view it— 
thus feel it. Here is the too common, withering 
error. Their own religion is too legal, and as 
such produces its corresponding, forbidding im- 
pression. If the heart is full of love, and that love 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 



159 



is daily fed at the cross, and by the promises, 
there is a soft and summer atmosphere about the 
man, in the genial influences of which, all around 
him delight to dwell. Thus we come back to the 
fundamental requisite in the family — that the pa- 
rents be — not merely christians — but living, lov- 
ing, cheerful christians, of chastened, heavenly 
tempers. Reader, is this your character? The 
highest welfare of your children pleads for its pos- 
session and maintenance. 

YOU SHOULD BRING YOUR CHILDREN UNDER THE 
INFLUENCE OF ALL THE STATED MEANS OF GRACE, 

and ordinances of God. God will not honor 
those who will not honor him and his established 
ordinances. It is in the way of their observance 
that he dispenses usual blessings. 

Under this direction may be included all the 
means of religious instruction. It is lawful and 
wise to adopt every expedient which promises to 
augment the influence of divine truth over youth- 
ful minds ; but those which God has established are 
never to be slighted. Among this latter class 
stands, first in order and importance, religious in- 
struction in the family. By this is signified some- 
thing else than that pleasant speaking of God, and 
winning manifestation of religion which has been 
already enjoined ; it refers to stated, systematic 



160 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOB. 



teaching in divine things. If the family holds the 
high place assigned it as a religious- institution? 
there surely should be, on that day which is sol- 
emnly consecrated to the highest religious pur- 
poses, a season devoted to this work. Is the 
church, which is but a larger family, to enjoy her 
services, and instruction, and worship ; and shall 
not the lesser, the primary families, have their's- 
also? Is there a hallowed association, powerful for 
good, connected with the solemn sanctuary ; and 
shall not our children have some corresponding as- 
sociations with the sober services of their houses, 
the lesser sanctuaries? The time and the place of 
such solemn convenings hold an incalculable in- 
fluence over little spirits. The instructions, at 
such times, should be adapted to the various ages 
and dispositions, and be so conducted, according 
to the discretion of each parent, as to minister to 
the highest degree of usefulness and interest* 

It will be distinctly recognised by the reader* 
that for this family religious instruction is claimed 
the high authority of a divine ordinance. The 
neglect of this ordinance is a fruitful source of the 
prevalent ungodliness of the rising race. It was 
observed in the earlier days of our country, and 
many christian parents have grown up under its 
influence to be what they are, while they neglect 
to confer the like benefit upon their children. 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 161 

The preaching of the word, and the appropriate 
jmblic assemblings of his people for worship, are 
other means of grace established by God. under 
the influence of which your children should be 
faithfully educated, And here I would have it 
noticed that the church, as a larger family, is 
composed of the lesser ones. Hence it appears 
that families should be found together in the house 
of Go;]. The indifference which is too often mani- 
fested on this subject, and the license which is 
given to the roving dispositions of the young, can- 
not be too severely reprehended. It is a plain 
part of God's ordinance that households be found 
united in his public, as well as in his family wor- 
ship. And it seems as appropriate that the child 
should prefer a different dwelling from his father's, 
and be humoured in the whim, as that he should 
prefer and be allowed to wander from his appro, 
priate seat in the sanctuary. 

There are other means of useful instruction in 
deserved repute, which, though they cannot plead 
direct divine authority, may be used with profit in 
the religious culture of the child. The Sabbath 
school is such an institution. There the child may 
go to hear the instructions of home corroborated 
and enforced by others. It has the heart of a 
pious instructor enlisted to pray f or j ts sanctifica- 
14* 



162 ON (xOTDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

tion. Thus intercession is increase; in its be- 
half; it becomes the object of united prayers on; 
of united counsels : it is led to look upon religion 
as claiming the attention of other children as well 
as its own ; its mind becomes furnished witn st;U 
additional stores of sanctifying truth, and tods 
public influences uniting with the private or.es. to 
impress the importance of eternal things* amd oi 
salvation by Christ. The probabilities of its sane 
tification thereby become increased, or; to; oope 
is strengthened that it may stood among toe o;r. 
fruits which the Spirit, in a time oi aweitenmg. s: 
plentifully gathers from pious families, aoo laito. 
fully instructed Sabbath schools. 

But above all things else, while presorting toese 
more public instrumentalities, let not toe p:e-em:. 
nence of household instruction o; rorgotteo 
it not be overlooked, that these public means, w ne- 
ther of divine or human origin, are to be vaore; 
as auxiliaries to the family institution, iney are 
not the chief instrumentalities in toe hopeful conmre 
of the young. These reside at home, and parents 
should be mindful that their response :i_i ti es cannot 
be shifted upon the Sanctuary and the baooatn 
school. 

YOU" SHOULD SET BEFOEE T C ~5 lOIlOOOZO" A ECU 

example. If they love you, their tastes, and ali 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 163 



their notions of excellence will correspond with 
the traits of your character. Thus it is of the 
highest importance that, while you win their de- 
voted affections, you present them, in your own 
self, with a model of holiness. Every blemish 
upon your character — every excellence that you 
lack, has a power to mislead your children, which 
is proportionate to the love they bear you. There 
is no view that is calculated so tenderly to press 
upon unregenerated hearts the necessity of per- 
sonal, consistent piety ; and there is no view, but 
that of the Saviour, that is more powerful with be- 
lieving parents, to excite them to live near to God. 

How can you expect your children to love and 
obey God, unless they see hy your conduct that you 
yield him obedience and love? They quickly learn 
to understand his commands, and they shrewdly 
discern the amount of your reverence for them* 
And if they find that those who are their models 
have no conscientiousness toward God, how can 
you expect them to revere his laws ? 

How can you expect them to pray to God, unless 
they see you pray, and thus confess your depen- 
dence, going to him for all things ? If you would 
teach them to pray, and to be chiefly mindful of 
God and unseen and eternal things, there must be 
something — some arrangement holding a promi- 



164 ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

nent place amid your household, calculated conti- 
nually to cultivate these spiritual habits. Pre- 
cepts will effect but little. Let them see that you 
are ever mindful of God. and of the great end of 
your spiritual- existence — that you are thus mind- 
ful when you first wake from slumber, and when 
you lie down at eventide. Let them see that God 
is so prominent in your thoughts, that you cannot 
undertake the duties of the day without his bless- 
ing, nor rest in quiet at night without a committal 
of yourself and your beloved household to his 
kindness and care. Let them see that while they 
are your children, you acknowledge yourself to be 
a child of a greater Father, and kneel down with 
affection, and simplicity, and sincerity, to pour out 
your soul before him. Let your language in these 
exercises be simple, and your words few, that 
your children may neither be weary, or entirely 
uninstructed. O what a place and a posture is 
this for the parent, by solemn illustration, to teach 
his family the beauty of penitence for wrongs com. 
mitted, and the delights of chastened love and obe- 
dience ! 

Secret prayer does not subserve the desired 
end.. It is witnessed only by the eye, and it en- 
ters only into the ear, of God. Household wor- 
ship is the needed arrangement. If you are so 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 165 

little mindful of God, as to go easily and careless- 
ly, day after day, to your employment, without 
prayer; if you appear before your children to 
think but seldom or never of God, how can you 
expect them to be mindful of him, when they look 
to your example for their highest law? If you are 
careless about their souls— if you have no desire 
that they should grow up in habits of heavenly- 
mindedness and prayer — if you are willing to 
abandon them to the unrestrained irruptions of 
worldliness, with all its sad temptations— if you 
are willing, by neglecting the greatest safeguards 
in this moral wilderness, to jeopardize their eternal 
interests, after you have given them being — then 
you may neglect the family altar, and banish all 
social acts of prayer from your doors. 

But God will not hold you guiltless of your 
children's sins ! Neither will your own conscience, 
in case your children grow up without religion 
and meet a dreadful end, escape the awful com- 
punction, at some future period, that by your ex- 
ample they were betrayed into the ways of de- 
struction ! 

But do you ask for the scripture warrant for 
this duty? You may as well ask for a scripture 
warrant to be honest, or a scripture warrant to be 
prayerful. If the whole design of the family ex. 



166 ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

hibits its religious character — if the scriptures ev- 
idently contemplate it as a religious institution, 
then these facts afford warrant enough for the du- 
ty—a warrant derived from the evident truth, 
that the object of the family can never be efficient- 
ly advanced where the duty of household prayer 
is neglected. 

But let us recur to the heavenly model. How 
does God govern us as a greater family ? What 
signify assemblings in the sanctuary, after divine 
appointment? What mean those institutions of 
prayer, and praise, and instruction, in the obser- 
vance of which, communities are assembled ? Are 
not these the means which God, as our great Fa- 
ther, has instituted for the spiritual and proper or- 
dering of the great family of man? And, ye fa- 
thers 3 are not you the appointed heads of lesser 
families? And if God has established altars for 
the public assemblies of men; if he institutes and 
enjoins public religious instruction and prayer, for 
the right ordering of his great family ; if he bases 
all their order and happiness and security, as he 
evidently does, upon the maintenance of these in- 
stitutions, what plea have you left for the omis- 
sion of corresponding instrumentalities in your 
own lesser households? Here — from the heavenly 
model — is derived a warrant plain enough, and 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 167 

broad enough for the sanction and authority of all 
branches of family religious instruction. 

But, in the connection in which this subject has 
been introduced, the duty was first considered as 
a necessary part of parental example, and as such, 
it is hoped that it commends itself to every reflect- 
ing conscience. 

Example is a mighty instrumentality — the most 
potent instructor. What God is— heaven is ; and 
what the parent is — that may the family be ex- 
pected to be. An evil or even a deficient exam- 
ple here, may prove a curse which nothing but 
the grace of God can avert : whereas, a devout, 
prayerful, holy example, is that instrumentality, 
which God has expressed, both by his word and 
dealings, an abundant readiness to bless. 

Pages might be easily and appropriately added 
here, on the importance of guarding against the 
evil influences of a wicked world, which, notwith- 
standing all parental diligence, tend to seduce the 
heart from God. The truth is one of awakening 
import— that our children are to be educated, if 
possible, in the exercise of feelings, thoughts and 
habits entirely different from those with which 
the world is full, and with which they must daily 
meet ? We not only have good influences to se- 
cure in that domestic circle which— God be prais- 



168 ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 

ed — is a place we can control; but we have an 
army of evil influences to resist — an army open- 
ing, on every hand, their devouring mouths to 
consume our offspring. Oh how many parents 
have trembled and wept and prayed, as they have 
been obliged to send forth their little lambs from 
the domestic fold, amid these ravening wolves ! 
Many hearts have ached, and many hairs have 
hastened to be gray, as the dubious progress, or 
the sad downfalls of these little ones have been 
painfully and anxiously watched. 

But we pass this subject which is too fruitful for 
discussion, to give one more direction to those who 
make it their chief aim to guide the affections of 
their children to God ; viz., 

Cultivate a deep sense of the need of the 
superadded grace of God. All other means are 
of no avail without this. They can only prepare 
the way and mark out the channel of grace. It 
is this sense of the absolute necessity of God's su- 
pervision and grace, which should drive the pa- 
rent often to the throne of mercy. It is this feel- 
ing which, more than any other one thing, promi- 
ses good to your households; it awakens to fideli- 
ty in every other duty, and prevails mightily with 
God. 

Your instructions — -your admonitions — your 



ON GUIDING THE AFFECTIONS TO GOD. 169 

love — your watchfulness, while they may do 
much in the work of outward restraint and moral 
culture, can never change the heart, or, unaided, 
guide its affections up to God. It is God — in 
whose hands are the hearts of kings — and God 
alone, who can summon the affections to himself 
and new-create the soul. The power is with 
him; that, while you labor and watch as he or- 
dains, you should also lie low at the footstool of 
his grace. 

Thus have been enumerated some of the more 
prominent instrumentalities, in the employment of 
which, parents may hopefully look for the full 
developement of their children's piety. It will be 
seen that those which are the most important lie 
within the sphere of the family, so that no parent 
can plead any excuse for their neglect. All 
things there are under your control, and there 
you are to be faithful ; you are absolute, both by 
the laws of God and man ; the " stranger," even, 
-that is within thy gates" is subject, while there, 
to your statutes. Adults, as well as children are 
to obey you there; so that your responsibility for 
all its arrangements and influences, and for all 
that comes from it, is great and solemn. 



15 



CHAPTER XL 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



Some may ask, "Who is sufficient for these 
things V 9 and be inclined to sink in view of duties 
so momentous and arduous. But there is a bright- 
er side ; there are encouragements and promises 
proportionate to the magnitude of the work ; and 
if a sense of dependence pervades the parental 
heart, there is a sure staff on which that depen- 
dence may rest. The family is no less a sphere 
of joy, than of responsibility ; abundant hopes may 
lawfully predominate over its anxieties. For it is 
true in this sphere, that " as thy days, so shall thy 
strength be," and the voice of the Saviour may 
be heard in the reviving assurance, " My grace is 
sufficient for thee." 

When man was created in holiness, the family 
relation was established. It was needed then, with 
all its wise and wonderful adaptations. Surely it 



172 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



cannot be of less importance since the fall. And 
if the plan of redemption is remedial — as it strict- 
ly i s — it surely will be found to operate through 
the original institutions, re-establishing and con- 
firming the?n, while it ordains whatever new insti- 
tutions may be necessary for our fallen state. It 
will surely accord, then, with all our preconcep- 
tions, that we find this precious sanctuary — 
h om8 — recognized in the economy of grace — its 
foundations secured, and its dilapidated wails re- 
built. 

It is the object of this chapter to show that there 
is a special covenant of grace established, on the 
part of God, with his spiritual people, in behalf of 
their children ; so that conscientious parents may 
be encouraged by the assurance of God's gracious 
co-operation and blessing. 

By a covenant, as the term will be used in these 
pages, is understood an agreement requiring 
the action of two parties, whereby they come 
under mutual obligations to perform specified du- 
ties. Such an agreement remains binding until it 
either expires by its own limitation, or is infringed 
by the unfaithfulness of either party. 

It can be made to appear from the Word of 
God, that he proffers special promises, not only to 
the persons of those who believe on the name of 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 173 

Christ, but also to their children, provided the pa- 
rents are found faithful in their various duties to 
God and to their households. By the proffer 
of these promises, God, on his part, tenders the 
covenant, which man, by believing and obey- 
ing, ratifies. It then becomes an " everlasting 
covenant ordered in all things and sure." There 
is a manifest distinction between the part of the 
covenant which consists in the proffer that God 
makes, and that part which depends upon man's 
compliance and ratification. All that is pro- 
posed to be shown, is that God makes his prof- 
fer to all who will believe and obey ; viz., that he 
will be a God, not only to them, but to their chil- 
dren after them. The fidelity of man to his part 
of the transaction will be hereafter noticed. 

The original promise of God was to Abraham, 
whose God, and the God of whose seed he pledged 
himself to be. See Gen. chap. xvii. This prom- 
ise did not so much concern Abraham's personal 
acceptance, for this was all settled previously. 
He had been called of God, as recorded in Gen. 
xii. 1. ; he had exercised personal faith, and 'it 
was "counted unto him for righteousness." Gen. 
xv. 6. But this was a more definite promise, of 
which he had received previous intimations, in be- 
half of his children — a promise to which he was en- 
15* 



174 THE FAMILY COVENANT. 

titled only as a believer in God ; but still one, in a 
measure distinct from, though connected with that 
whereby his personal acceptance was secured. 

The import of the promise is comprehended in 
the words, "I will be their God," He promises 
to be their God in the same sense in which he was 
Abraham's God ; thus, while he pledged an earth- 
ly inheritance, the promise, in its higher sense, 
concerned spiritual favors. 

The conditions, by the observance of which 
Abraham was to ratify the covenant, were two- 
fold — spiritual and ceremonial. The spiritual 
condition was, Gen. xvii. 1, "walk before me and 
be thou perfect ; w and the actual entail of the 
covenant involved also the righteous walk of his 
seed; see verse 9. The ceremonial condition 
was the rite of circumcision which is instituted 
in the after part of the chapter. 

God, then, promised to confer the same spiritual 
blessings upon the seed of Abraham forever, which 
he had conferred on the person of Abraham, 
provided he, and his seed after him, would ratify 
this covenant, by a close and upright walk with 
God, and by the faithful administration of that pre- 
scribed outward rite which was to be the public, 
ceremonial recognition of the covenant. Thus 
there was established, beyond question, in the case 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 175 

of die Jewish people, a marked connection be- 
tween the obedience and fidelity of the parents, 
and the spiritual prosperity of their offspring. 

This whole matter is farther and amply illustra- 
ted in all the subsequent portions of the Old Tes- 
tament. 

When the children of Israel began first to be 
recognized as a nation, and God, according to his 
promise, appeared for their deliverance, he renews 
this promise, telling them by the mouth of his 
servant Moses, "Thou shalt keep therefore his 
statutes, &c, * * which I command thee this 
day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy chil- 
dren after thee." Deut. iv. 40. See also Deut. vii. 
12, 13. The following is a remarkably explicit 
comment on the import of the covenant, — "0 that 
there were such an heart in them that they would 
fear me and keep all my commandments always, 
that it might be well with them and their children 
forever." Deut. v. 29. Here the promise and 
its conditions are plainly implied. For a like pas- 
sage, see Deut. xii. 25. The whole of Deut. xxx. 
is occupied with precious promises to the Israelites 
and their seed after them, if they would but con- 
tinue to serve the Lord. In case of departures 
and subsequent penitence, God promises to renew 
his covenant with them, and their children, 



1 ' D THE FAMILY COVENANT. 

But a volume might be occupied in exhibiting 
the Old Testament representations on this subject. 
We must dismiss the prosecution of this work by 
referring the reader to the following, among a 
large class of passages: Prov. xi. 21: xx. 7. 
Psalm xxxvii. 25. 

Ail who are familiar with the Old Testament, 
know that it abounds with special promises and 
injunctions, such as have been quoted, and will 
readily assent to the fact, that peculiar and pre- 
cious promises are therein proffered to the seed 
of Abraham, and that the fulfilment of those pro- 
mises is closely associated with the personal obedi- 
ence of parents and their faithful instruction of 
their children. 

But though these promises were originally 
made to Abraham, it is, of them, that we Gentiles, 
if believers in Jesus, under the christian dispensa- 
tion, have become heirs. So that the very same 
offer of household blessings is now made by God 
to all who believe on the name of his Son. This 
is evident from various considerations. 

It comports with the language of the original 
promise—" in thee shall all the families of the 
earth be blessed." These words unfold a de- 
sign more comprehensive, in its ultimate limits, 
than the bounds of any nation. They show that 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



177 



Abraham was the chosen and honored medium of 
communicating spiritual blessings, not only unto 
his lineal descendants, but unto all the nations of 
the earth. 

It accords with the practices of the Jews. In- 
dividuals of other nations, upon renouncing idola- 
try and taking upon themselves the name of the 
Lord, were admitted to the privileges of the Jew- 
ish people. They and their children, becoming 
entitled to Jewish privileges, as though lineal de- 
scendants of Abraham, show that the blessings of 
the covenant, in the judgment of the Jews, were 
not exclusively confined to the native-born of 
their nation. And these authorized practices 
were a manifestation, through every successive 
age of their peculiar privileges, that God had ul- 
timate respect, in the covenant he had established 
with them, to all the families of the earth. 

It u-as a matter of prophecy, that the Gentiles 
should become full partakers of all the covenant 
privileges. If any reader is not familiar with this 
fact, it is sufficient to refer him to the following 
chapters of Isaiah, viz., xlix., liv., lv., Ix., Ixi., 
Ixii., lxv., Ixvi. 

The New Testament abundantly confirms the 
title of the believing Gentiles to all the covenant 
promises of the Jews: so far as those promises 



1 < o THE FAMILY COVENANT. 

concerned spiritual things. Here the prophecies 
of Isaiah and others are found to meet with their 
fulfillment. The Apostle Peter, in his address on 
the clay of Pentecost, says, "For the promise is 
unto you and to your children," and then adds, 
"'and to all that are afar off, even as many as the 
Lord our God shall call. 55 The special promise 
in behalf of children is recognized as belonging 
equally to the Gentiles, by the vision of the cen- 
turion, wherein he was told that Peter should in- 
struct him in that whereby he and all his house 
should be saved. Acts xi. 14. See also the offer 
of Paul to the jailer — "'Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and tliy house" 
Acts xvi. 31. 

But consider this same Apostle's reasoning in 
the third chapter of his epistle to the Galatians. 
"They which are of faith, the same are the chil- 
dren of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing 
that God would justify the heathen through faith, 
preached before the gospel unto Abraham, say- 
ing, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 55 What 
can be plainer than this? Pie continues, "So then 
they which be of faith, are blessed with faithful 
Abraham. 55 Verses 7, 8, 9. In verses 13 and 
1-1 it is ridded, "Christ hath redeemed us from the 
curse of the law, ***** t } lat t ^ e 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 179 

blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles 
through Jesus Christ/'' 

In the subsequent part of the chapter, the Apes- 
tie seems to vary the argument. Presenting 
Christ as a lineal descendant of Abraham, he as- 
serts the nearness of believers with him, and con- 
eludes as follows, "And if ye be Christ's, then 
are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to 
the promise." 

In like manner it is as frequently and gloriously 
asserted, that, in Christ there is neither Jew nor 
Greek — circumcision or uncircumcision — bond nor 
free, but Christ is all and in all. What could more 
unequivocally proclaim a community of interest 
and privilege, under the Gospel dispensation, be- 
tween all classes of men ? The Jew and the Gen- 
tile are on the same footing. And this is not 
brought about by reducing the Jew to the level of 
the Gentile — for this would manifestly make the 
privileges of the new, less than the privileges of 
the old dispensation ; but it is effected through 
that glorious One, who is, by pre-eminence, the 
seed of Abraham, and in whom all the families of 
the earth are admitted to the same blessings. 
Thus Jesus Christ, uniting, as he does, all nations 
and kindreds into one — giving them one new and 
common and everlasting name— becomes the ^lo- 



ISO 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



rious key-stone of the arch of divine grace, — the 
One on whom all human hopes depend, and by 
whom all the tribes of men are bound together in 
the joyful bonds of a spiritual and everlasting bro- 
therhood ! 

To suppose that believers in Christ are not pos- 
sessors of the promise made to Abraham concern- 
ing his seed, involves the manifest error that the pri- 
vileges of the christian dispensation are less than 
those of the one that has passed. This is contrary 
to all the declarations of God, and the universal 
belief of his people. Still, unless it is maintained, 
as cannot be. that the promises to Abraham's seed 
were only of temporal and national, and contem- 
plate no spiritual blessings — then follows the ma- 
nifest absurdity alluded to above. Are the spirit- 
ual promises of this dispensation abridged ? Did 
the Jews possess one that we do not now have in 
a more glorious manner ? 

It cannot be doubted that the church of Christ, 
with all its covenants and promises, is essentially 
the same, both subsequent and previous to his per- 
sonal appearance and atonement for sin. 

It is allowable, therefore, to bid parents to read 
and receive as theirs, all the promises which are 
so thickly scattered throughout the Old Testa- 
ment, of God's blessing upon the seed of his faith- 



THE FA3IILY COVENANT. 



181 



fill children — that he will show mercy unto thou- 
sands of such as fear him — and that he will estab- 
lish his covenant with the pious and their seed, 
and their seed's seed, from generation to genera- 
tion. But when they read, let them fail not to be 
incited thereby to more and more fidelity in the 
culture of every grace, and in the discharge of 
every duty which may commend them, through 
Christ, to the favor of that God, whose favor is life. 

Be encouraged, christian parent, in view of 
the precious promises. Search them out, study 
them, lay hold of them by faith, and when you 
feel your need of grace to aid you in the discharge 
of parental responsibilities, remember that there 
is a fountain of grace opened for your children, 
as well as for your own soul. 

It is proper to say a word here of the seal of 
this covenant, which is established under the Chris- 
tian dispensation ; viz., Infant Baptism. 

It is conceded, on all hands, that circumcision 
was the public ceremonial seal of the original cov- 
enant. As we have become heirs of the same 
covenant, we are also obligated to employ its seal. 
It was, and is, one of the steps necessary to the 
fall ratification of the covenant, and should never 
be neglected by those who are anxious to walk in 
all the commandments of the Lord blameless. 
16 



182 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



We must employ the same seal, unless we have 
evidence of its form being changed. 

The seal has been changed, and is now appro- 
priately administered by the application of water 
to infants, in the name of the Father, the Son, and 
the Holy Ghost. 

1. Circumcision was abolished ; as appears 
from the frequent declarations, that in Christ there 
is neither circumcision nor uncireumcision ; and 
also from the account contained in Acts, ch. xv. 

2. There was a propriety in a change being 
effected. The Old Testament was written in 
blood to teach the great need of the shedding of 
blood for the remission of sins. Now that Christ 
has appeared and fulfilled the law, there is no call 
for such a type. It partook also of the nature of 
a national mark, the necessity of which was done 
away, when the wall between the Jews and Gen- 
tiles was broken down : from which time its spi- 
ritual signification was appropriately, under a 
more gracious dispensation, transferred to a mild- 
er ordinance. 

3. The ordinance of Baptism was enjoined by 
Christ, as the initiating ordinance : " Go ye into 
all the world," &c. 

4. Children of believers under the present, as 
under the former dispensation, being in covenant 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



183 



fmvor, are entitled to the seal, which was actually 
set, by the Apostles, in the administration of the 
ordinance of infant baptism. See Acts xvi. 15 
and 33. 1. Cor. i. 16. In these verses, the word 
rendered "household" is rendered, in one of the 
early versions, (Syriac) "children." 

Infant Baptism, therefore, as appears from the 
above brief considerations, is the ordinance which 
should be employed, by all believers who are 
heads of families. But perhaps we hear the voice 
of an objector already interposing, and question- 
ing the obligation of any forms under the Chris- 
tian dispensation. 

It is readily conceded, that the present is pre-em- 
inently a spiritual dispensation. It is not composed 
of, neither does much of its efficacy consist in, such 
like ceremonies as were essential to the ancient 
service, and as were enjoined by its cumbersome 
ritual. But still, that all public and formal ac- 
knowledgements of God, by his people, are abro- 
gated, is incorrect. The Sabbath and the services 
of the sanctuary still remain, as instituted means, 
whereby God is to be held in remembrance. The 
observances of the Christian dispensation are not 
burdensome: Baptism and the Lord's Supper being 
the only ones that partake much of the semblance 
of ceremonies. 



184 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



But, asks the objector, why cannot I remember 
the death of Jesus Christ, and commune with him 
in spirit, without this external observance ? And 
why cannot I believe in the covenant promise io 
my children, and acknowledge it before God, with- 
out the administration of any external rite? 

It is enough to answer, that God has ordered 
these observances. There are two great acts of 
God's grace through Jesus Christ: one is seen 
in the covenant made with his people regarding 
their own personal salvation; and the other is 
manifest in the covenant madb in behalf of their 
children. These are the great, distinguishing, 
glorious acts of God's grace; — acts, the fruits and 
the contemplation of which will fill heaven with 
praises ! Now it is, with a proper regard to his 
own glory, that God requires his people to ac- 
knowledge, — not in private, merely, but in public, 
and by some simple method of his own wise or- 
daining,— these distinguishing acts of his grace. 
Thus, by the Lord's Supper, all his people publicly 
ascribe the glory of their salvation unto the Lamb 
of God who taketh away the sins of the world: 
and, in like manner, the baptism of infants is a 
public and highly appropriate recognition by the 
parents, and before the world, of that other great 
act of God's grace, whereby he promises to he & 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 185 

God unto their children. The children of God's 
faithful people, collectively viewed, are followed 
with special temporal and spiritual prosperity. It 
is proper, therefore, lest such a manifest result 
should be ascribed to human agency, that chris- 
tian parents should be called on publicly to ac- 
knowledge that, wherein their offspring may differ 
from others in piety, all is to be ascribed to the 
grace of God. And when we consider the use of 
the ordinance, in its power to impress parental 
obligation, to awaken the most tender emotions, 
and to excite, at the most hopeful season, parental 
watchfulness and effort, we find that the objection 
to infant baptism, as a needless or indifferent cere- 
mony, is utterly set aside. 

Of infants, the children of believers are the 
only proper subjects of baptism. Baptism is the 
seal of a covenant. Of what covenant ? Of the 
covenant made with the children of Abraham, in 
behalf of their children. But who are the chil- 
dren of Abraham? "They which are of faith, the 
same are the children of Abraham." '''And if ye 
be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs 
according to the promise." What title, then, 
have those who are neither "Christ's," nor "of 
faith, 5 ' to offer themselves as "heirs of the prom- 
ise?" God has given them no promise. With 
16* 



-lob THE FAMILY COVENANT. 

tenderness and sorrow be it said, unbelieving pa- 
rents, you have no promises — no covenants for 
yourselves or your households. You are living 
where — for aught God has promised you to the 
contrary — devouring influences may feed upon 
you and your children, and calamities, without 
alleviation, may befall you. O why will ye dwell 
in the howling wilderness ? Shall the Saviour say 
of you also, as he looks on the coming destruc- 
tion of yourselves and families, "How often would 
I have gathered you as a hengathereth her chick- 
ens under her wings, but ye would not !" 



CHAPTER XIL 



THE FAMILY COVENANT, 

(continued.) 

There remain some inquiries still to be prose- 
cuted, concerning the definiteness of this covenant. 
Is it positive — definite — absolute : or is it, on the 
other hand, a mere assurance of a general con- 
nection between parental obedience and fidelity, 
and the spiritual prosperity of the offspring ? The 
former view is the one which the author feels con- 
strained to adopt and advocate ; viz., that the cov- 
enant is definite and absolute. The idea intended 
to be conveyed by this language is, that — instead 
of a general promise that, in most, or many cases, 
parental fidelity will be smiled upon and succeed- 
ed — the promise is, that upon all the children of 
his people, his converting and sanctifying spirit 
shall be poured out — provided, the parents walk 
before him and are perfect, observing and per- 



1^3 THE FAMILY COVENANT. 

forming all their duties toward God and their 
households. Lest some should be surprised at 
this statement, it may be well to insert in this place 
that passage quoted in the preceding chapter : 
" 0 that there were such a heart in them that they 
would fear me and keep all :oy commandments 

children forever,** — Deut. v. 29. Many of 
God s " commandments,"" it will be remembered, 
concern the government of the household. 

Definiteness op promises and conditions is 

ESSENTIAL TO THE VERY IDEA OF A COVENANT. 

God. by becoming a party in a covenant with, 
man, does not alridge his sovereignty, consider- 
ed as an attribute. The covenant originates in 
it, and is merely a pledge that, on certain condi- 
tions. God will ever act in a stipulated way. Still, 
in one sense, a covenant may be said to limit the- 
action of God's sovereignty. We will not say that 
God can not — but. that he will not act in any other 
than the stipulated way. And here is the value 
of a covenant promise: it is God's word, to which, 
when we comply with the proffered conditions, we 
bind him. It stands fast, for he cannot lie. In a 
covenant, then. Divine sovereignty pledges it- 
self! I: assumes a cognizable form; it is render- 
ed definite, and changes not. Therefore, to say 
that God has established a covenant which he will 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. loy 

observe in the generality of instances, is to de- 
prive his word of all stability? and is manifestly 
absurd. 

Suppose that we interpret the personal covenant 
of grace, made with those who believe, as of a ge- 
neral, and not of an absolute and definite charac- 
ter; with regard to the fulfilling of which God is 
at liberty to act as a sovereign in every case. 
Would it be any covenant at all 1 How should I 
know whether he would accept, or except me on 
such conditions? It would avail nothing to my 
quiet as a poor, conscience-stricken sinner, to 
know that, as a general thing, God would accept 
all who come unto him through Jesus Christ. I 
wish to know what is his fixed, definite, universal 
rule of conduct, ere my soul can find any rest. 
It is only when I find that, by a sure promise, he 
has graciously pledged his sovereignty, and as- 
sured me that he will always act in a given way, 
upon given conditions, that I find ground on 
wdiich I can rest my aching soul ; it is then only 
that I find the long sought shelter of a sure and 
eternal covenant. 

A like pledging of sovereignty is implied in 
all promises and covenants, and is essential to 
their very nature ; so that every covenant must 
be definite. It can have nothing to do with ge- 



iyU THE FAMILY COVENANT. 

neralities. And hence, if we suppose the cove- 
nant made with pious parents to be general — as 
proffering blessings which, in most cases, will be 
granted, and may be in others withheld, we rob it 
of that which constitutes the value and essence of 
any covenant— we leave the name, and remove 
the tiling. In contending, then, for the definite- 
ness of the covenant under consideration, we are 
but contending for its vitality. 

There is nothing- indefinite in the terms of 
the original covenant. The promise to Abra- 
ham was, to be a God to him and to his seed. 
There is nothing here about a portion of his 
seed, or the generality of his seed, or that be- 
tween parental fidelity and filial piety, he would 
establish a general connection. The terms em- 
ployed are, like the terms of all God's covenants 
and promises, plain, definite, absolute, and decisive. 

We are to regard, therefore, this covenant as 
proffered alike unto all believers, and unto all 
their children. It is as equally applicable, in the 
terms of its proposition, to one as to another — to 
the whole, as to a part. God promises unto all 
parents who will keep all Ids commandments al- 
ways, that it shall be well with them and their chil- 
dren forever! 

The suitableness of such a covenant to our 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



191 



NATURAL, STRONG, AND UNCHANGING DESIRES FOR 
OUR CHILDREN'S GOOD, IS AN ARGUMENT IN ITS FA- 
VOR. Such desires are in the bosom of every pa- 
rent, and they are felt, equally, with regard to eve- 
ry child. And so closely are we bound to those 
who are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, 
that full value would scarcely seem to be given 
to the scheme of salvation, unless it embraced our 
households, also, in its sure, unfailing covenants. 

Look at the famished mother whose little chil- 
dren are gathering around her, and pleading, in 
vain, for bread. Her own body faints with hun- 
ger ; but that is nothing to the aching of her heart 
under the cries of her babes. See a man ap- 
proaching with a half loaf for her relief. Hear 
him tender it on the condition that she will eat it, 
for her life is valuable, and it is not sufficient for 
them all. How almost valueless the offer! Her 
children cannot share it ! 

God forbid that I should say the offer of per- 
sonal salvation would be almost valueless, if it 
were not associated with the family covenant ; 
but this I may say, that the connection of the lat- 
ter with the former does enhance, beyond measure, 
the value of redemption. Our children are pro- 
vided for, and we may say to others, as Paul to 
the jailer, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 



19 '2 THE FAMILY COVENAOT. 

and thou shalt be saved, and thv house.'' Wo 
can go with the full blessing, — with balm for every 
wound. 

But, it may be said, this partakes more of feel- 
ing than argument ; that we cannot reason from 
the fact that such an arrangement would please 
us, that therefore it is so. True — but still it is 
safe to reason that God has as truly made provis- 
ion, in the kingdom of his grace, for those right 
desires which he has implanted ; as he has, in the 
kingdom of nature, for our natural wants. While 
we cannot reason from depraved, we may reason 
from correct desires. And there is a fitness in 
the belief that the whole economy of grace is 
nicely adjusted to the wants of our spiritual and 
social natures. 

Who has reared the family institution, and con- 
stituted all its endearing relations — was it not God? 
Who has woven these tender ties; and whose 
eternal fingers have bound around us these silken 
cords of household love ? Is not the answer, — God? 
Who has so bound the parent to the child that in 
order to the full enjoyment of any blessing by the 
former, it must be shared with his children? Was 
it not God ! 

These feelings and all their proper, outgrowing 
desires. God has implanted, and from the:: indica- 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 193 

lion we may safely reason. He has not made us 
to thirst, without causing the earth to gush forth 
with springs ; nor to hunger, without causing it to 
teem with plenty ; nor to be weary, without pro- 
viding ' e ' tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy 
sleep." And has he implanted within us these 
higher emotions, without providing for them in the 
economy of his grace ! 

On no other supposition than the one advocated, 
can we understand why an abundance of children 
is so frequently promised, as a blessing, to God's 
people. Such was the promise to Abraham ; and 
such were made, frequently, to the children of Is- 
rael. But is it a blessing to bring forth children 
unto eternal death? Can such an increase be 
promised by God as a blessing, unless at the same 
time he has made sure provision for their good ? 
Such a provision we believe he has made, instru- 
rnentally, and every generation of parents may 
know that if they will keep all the command- 
ments of God always, it will be w T ell with their 
children forever. 

God multiplies the generations of the righteous, 

because he knows that they, like Abraham, will 

command their households after them. And he 

cuts off the generations of the wicked. 

As the covenant has been understood, in this 
17 



194 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 



discussion, its establishment depends on the fidelity 
of the parent in keeping the commands of God. 

Some of these commands are that they live near 
to God, and grow in grace — that they set holy 
examples — offer earnest intercessions — that they 
apply the seal of the covenant to their children — ■ 
that they instruct them in righteousness, and lead 
lives of obedience and devotedness to God, 

But where is the parent who keeps all these 
commandments always? God makes the proffer 
of the covenant, but where is the parent that can 
plead his own fulfillment of the prescribed condi- 
tions ? Thus the covenant is never fully ratified. 

Do you ask, then, why exhibit it? It is mani- 
fest, in all God's dealings, that he stoops to our 
infirmities. He does not cast us off for our frail- 
ties. And in nothing is this more manifest than 
in the fact, that, though we hold him not to his 
gracious covenant, still he does wonderfully pro- 
portion his blessings to our approximations to 
duty. Here, then, while, through our sin, we are 
left without a claim, we have still precious en- 
couragement. Look, ye parents, and rejoice. 
Be excited by the view that has been presented, — 
by the whole, corroborating history of pious fam- 
ilies, to draw nigh unto God. For your own 
sakes, and for your children's sakes, purge away 



THE FAMILY COVENANT. 195 

your sins, and aim after higher and higher holi- 
ness. Thus the blessing of the God of Abraham 
and of Isaac and of Jacob will rest upon you and 
your seed after you ! 

There is a habit, however, sometimes preva- 
lent, but which cannot be too pointedly rebuked, 
of judging, from the character of the children, of 
the spiritual character of the parents. "We are 
not thus to judge one another. Noah had wicked 
children, and David had an Absalom ; but who 
shall, therefore, sit in judgment on them? If we 
are dealt with according to our deserts, we shall 
share in like afflictions; arid if we infer, from our 
comparative mercies, that we are more deserving, 
we are but one short step behind the Pharisee, 
who, in open language, said, "Lord I thank thee 
that I am not as other men are." God may see 
that, of two equally faithful parents, one, because 
of some special sin or infirmity, needs, in mercy, 
such a recompense more than another. These 
things, with their reasons, are all with God. And 
while we may rightly hold the general doctrine 
inculcated above, we should ever bear in mind, 
when we contemplate individual instances, the Sa- 
viour's admonition, "Judge not, that ye be not 
judgedo" 



CHAPTER XIII. 



CONCLUSION. 

The topics that have been discussed in this lit- 
tle volume, have had almost exclusive reference 
to the relation between the immortal soul and 
God. There is another class of relations which 
we all hold to our fellow creatures. These, also, 
lie in the sphere of religious and moral culture, 
They form a distinct, though co-ordinate portion 
of our duties, and are capable of being exhibited 
in a like manner. The view which has been 
taken of the Family as a Religious Institution, 
and of Heaven as its Model, affords equal facilities 
for the illustration of these duties, and of the prin- 
ciples which parents should adopt in inculcating 
them. In the family, the little child is usually 
surrounded with its fellow creatures, near it in 
point of age, possessing equality of rights, and 
bound to it by endearing ties. So that while, in 
17* 



198 



CONCLUSION. 



its relation to the parent, there is an embryo of 
its relation to God, in a higher sphere : there 
is. also, in its relation to its fellows, an embryo of 
its future relations in the community, and in the 
universe. But this interesting and extensive sub- 
ject must be waived, and commended to the re- 
flections of the reader. 

And, now, in closing these pages, the author 
would beseech those to whom they are more es- 
pecially addressed, solemnly to ponder their re- 
sponsibilities. Review, in thought, some of the 
considerations which have been suggested. 

You have been told that the entire responsibilty 
of your children's education is cast upon you. 
God has done this. He has placed them upon 
your knee : he has caused them to gather around 
your fireside: he has made them the inmates of 
your parlors and chambers. They look to you 
for protection in infancy, for care in childhood, 
and for fidelity in riper years. They seek, at 
your hand, the supply of their daily wants ; they 
watch your example, with childlike simplicity and 
shrewdness, for the lessons of their own conduct, 
and they hang upon every word of your lips for 
instruction. And while God has placed them in 
this relation to you, in order to give the tender 



CONCLUSION. 



199 



ones every possible security for the wise promo- 
tion of their good, he has bound them to your 
heart — he has made them the fondest objects of 
your love. He has not intrusted them to you as 
to a servant, but as to a Father and a Mother, 
and has given them the power of exerting every 
artifice upon your affections. He has made the 
happiness of the domestic circle to consist as a 
whole. The misery of one is, measurably, the 
misery of all ; and thus it is, he has wedded pa- 
rental fidelity and parental happiness, giving to 
the child, as the security of its faithful education, 
every prompting of parental affection and parental 
interest. How fitly is this all devised ! 

In this measure, God has given you power over 
your child. What is there that you cannot do 
for it? Whither is it not in your power to turn its 
infantile thoughts and affections ? With what ex- 
pectancy may you not rear it ? For what business 
may you not train it? To what religion may you 
not convert it ? To what real or false church may 
you not attach its affections? You can teach it to 
be a follower of Mahomet, or a worshipper of 
Vishnu, or a mere moralist after the school of a 
diluted Christianity. You can rear it to despise 
all religion, and to sneer at eternal life as a fable, 
and at eternal death as a horrid superstition. In 



200 CONCLUSION. 

fine, you can give whichsoever of these, or other 
characters, you choose, if so be you will shape, to 
the production of the intended end, your own ex- 
ample and precepts, and prostitute, to the same 
hellish purpose, all the hallowed influences of the 
domestic circle. 

Your example is potent. Every affection tends 
to you as to its first known and most natural ob- 
ject, and every look is to your appearance and 
your conduct. You do teach, you cannot help 
teaching and inculcating what you are, more than 
you can hinder the sun from shining, or the fire 
from warming. The impress of your own char- 
acter is made upon all around you. 

As great as these responsibilities are, from them 
you can never be separate ! 

Contemplate, still farther, your absoluteness, 
No one can withstand you in the sphere of home. 
No one can enter there. No human influence, or 
combined influences can rival yours. " My father 
said it," or "My mother did it," is the all prevail- 
ing argument upon the heart, long after the tongue 
has ceased to lisp it. What a guarantee of virtue 
where the sayings and the doings are in the fear 
of God ! What a seal of destruction where vice, or 
error, or negligence reigns! Who is there that 
lives to be so old as to divest himself entirely of 



CONCLUSION. 



201 



the remembered parental example? It is a legacy 
that remains, for good or ill, after riches are con- 
sumed, and the remembrance of later things fades 
away. So absolute is your control that good in- 
fluences from abroad are of but little avail unless 
seconded at home — of no avail, if discountenanced 
at home. 

There is no mere human influence that can 
compete with that of the parent. The preacher 
of the Gospel may rivet the attention and arouse 
the consciences of the little household, as he dis- 
courses from the commandment, " Remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy" — and the parent 
may, by one worldly remark, or one worldly ac- 
tion, as he passes, with his fond family, from the 
house of God, change the impressed seriousness of 
an hour's labor into levity, and the deep wrought 
fear into mirth. One oath from the parent may 
seemingly absolve his household from the obliga- 
tion of the third commandment — one act of insub- 
ordination may do away the fifth — one angry pas- 
sion, or meditated revenge, may undermine the 
sixth — one unchaste expression may break the 
fetters of the seventh — one act of fraud or shrewd- 
ness may render nugatory the eighth — one preva- 
rication may destroy the ninth — one instance of 
covetousness may involve in common ruin the 



202 CONCLUSION. 

tenth — while the whole tenor of parental example 
and domestic arrangements, making manifest that 
there is no fear of God, effects the demolition of 
that first command, on which hang the law and 
the prophets. 

Thus the parents may easily, by a wicked or 
inconsiderate life before their children, throw down 
the altar and break the tables of stone, and set 
their households in eternal defiance to the influ- 
ence and eloquence of the sanctuary ! Who can 
stem this influence ? Who can save the child, or 
modify essentially its character, when — even des- 
titute of the co-operation — and, much more, when 
contending even with the opposition of Home ! ! 
No one but Gob can operate against you. 

Forget not, beloved readers, if you are parents, 
that, as such, you are invested with a mighty in- 
fluence, and that on you is reposed a weighty re- 
sponsibility ; that, as such, you are to rule for 
God, to make your own dwellings little sanctua- 
ries, to employ your inalienable authority for 
righteousness ; and that, as such, you have a pre- 
cious covenant of grace proffering to you all need- 
ed aid. Look upward ; be holy — be prayerful — 
be diligent. 

I look above, into the sereneness of the starry 
sky, and think of the vast conjecture of the astro- 



CONCLUSION. 203 

nomer, that every little star is a sun and centre of 
another system like our own, and that this infini- 
tude of systems revolves around some greater 
centre which upholds and enlightens all ; and I 
seem to derive, from thence, an illustration of the 
apparent constitution of human society, every 
kingdom and nation, and, to descend still lower, 
every Family of which is, in itself, a little system 
with its fixed centre,— all combining to make one 
great and glorious system, the centre of which 
is — God ; the light of which is — the effulgence 
of his eternal glory. And as, in the natural 
world, the lesser suns are to receive their light 
and heat from the one that is greater and cen- 
tral, — so, in the moral, kings, and princes, and pa- 
rents, and all in authority, are but to reflect, upon 
others, the light and influence which they derive 
from communion with God, and a faithful obe- 
dience to his commands. Alas! how many fami- 
lies, their suns being set, go out in eternal dark- 
ness ! 

Remember your accountability. The day of 
final reckoning approaches, and you must meet 
your family in judgment ! 

And now,— that you may be found faithful, in 
that great day; and that you may escape the 
awful condemnation of those whose very house- 



holds, and whose d 
them, — may the gr 
be with you, and y< 



3st children testify against 
of our Lord Jesus Christ 
DnsDrinsr, iorever. 



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